Cases › physical harm › LR-2026-0434

Snohomish County motorcyclist killed in crash involving Tesla Autopilot (lawsuit filed by family)

Preliminary Why: 1 report: KOMO News · subject to change · 1 independent report

Developing: a major or severe case captured in the last 72 hours. Later changes are logged on the corrections page.

Status: action reported, no fix

Severity severe

Reported 2 Feb 2026

Developer and model Tesla

No source states: loss or records, agent tool, could do, deployer, industry.

Severity severe: Safety of life test met: the crash claimed the life of a person, according to the sentence quoted.

A Tesla operating on Autopilot collided with a motorcyclist on State Route 522 in Snohomish County in April 2024, killing Jeffrey Nissen Jr., 28. The family's lawsuit alleges that the Autopilot feature failed to detect him or the change in traffic, and accuses Tesla of continuing to release the software despite known safety risks. Initial reports said the Tesla's driver was distracted by his cell phone; he was initially arrested, but no criminal charges have been filed. Tesla did not respond to press requests for comment, and the allegations have not been tested in court. The reporting presents the family's claims as allegations.

What happened

1 · What it was doingA Tesla operating on Autopilot was involved in a collision with a motorcyclist on State Route 522.

2 · What went wrongThe family alleges the Autopilot feature failed to detect the motorcyclist or the change in traffic.

3 · What it reached or didThe crash killed the motorcyclist, Jeffrey Nissen Jr.

What was done

The family sued Tesla, alleging it kept releasing the software despite known safety risks.

Risks

Physical harm
Primary43 incidents

Sorted by rule from the case's fields; not yet read from the sources.

Controls

Not yet read for controls. Controls that mitigate the primary risk:

Harness

Stop control

Application

Physical safety interlocks · Human approval for high-impact actions · Live behaviour monitoring · Adversarial testing before deployment

Similar incidents

Tesla Autopilot motorcycle crash lawsuit, State Route 522, Snohomish County, Washington (2024)2026-01-11

Tesla settles lawsuit over fatal Autopilot crash2026-09-17

Tesla settles fatal Autopilot fire truck lawsuit before jury trial2026-09-02

Judge upholds $243 million verdict against Tesla over fatal Autopilot crash2026-02-20

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Evidence

No source states: how it was caught, when it happened, when it was found, how many records were exposed, the direct loss, a count of the other parties affected, any court case, the cause, what set it off.

Show the full account: 1 items from the primary sources

What happened, in order

April 2024 Crash on State Route 522 in which a Tesla operating on Autopilot collided with the motorcyclist.

Show every field, with its source and grade

The AI system

Developer

Tesla

C one secondary source states it

What happened

Earliest source we hold

2026-02-02

D inferred by us from the described behaviour, reason shown

What went wrong

physical harm

D inferred by us from the described behaviour, reason shown

Impact

Severity

severe

D inferred by us from the described behaviour, reason shown

Kind of harm

bodily harm

C one secondary source states it

Why this severity

Safety of life test met: the crash claimed the life of a person, according to the sentence quoted.

D inferred by us from the described behaviour, reason shown

Notes on gaps

The sources describe a lawsuit's allegations, not established findings. The lawsuit's filing year is not stated (only January). The date of disclosure is not stated, and the article date is not used as one. Reversibility, record counts and third-party counts are not stated and were left out.

LR-2026-0434 · version 1 · published 2026-11-01 after automatic checks; not yet checked field by field by a person · JSON