AI Risk Wire

Cases › physical harm › LR-2026-0525

Tesla Full Self-Driving drives through lowered railroad crossing arm before train (Texas, owner account)

Preliminary Why: Publisher not yet named · subject to change

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 15 Apr 2026
Developer and model Tesla

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

A Texas owner says his car, using Tesla’s Full Self-Driving, was stopped at an active railroad crossing with the arm down when the car moved forward on its own and drove through the lowered crossing arm as a train approached. He says he pressed the accelerator to clear the tracks instead of braking, and the car crossed the rails with the train bearing down. He braked only after the car had cleared the tracks and walked away unharmed. The account, shared through Storyful video and reported by Electrek, is one of several FSD railroad-crossing reports cited. The day after the incident Tesla began rolling out FSD v14.3, and NHTSA already has an open probe into FSD.

What happened

1 · What it was doingThe owner says the car was stopped at an active level crossing with the arm down and lights flashing.
2 · What went wrongThe owner says the car accelerated forward on its own while stopped at the crossing.
3 · What it reached or didThe car went through the lowered crossing arm and crossed the rails as the train approached.

What was done

The owner walked away shaken but unharmed.

Risks

Physical harm
Primary43 incidents

Read from the sources; not yet reviewed by a person.

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 in Full Self-Driving mode strikes and kills pedestrian on I-80, Solano County, California2026-10-15
NHTSA upgrades probe into Tesla Full Self-Driving over low-visibility crashes2026-03-19
Federal investigation into Tesla Full Self-Driving (FSD) feature2026-04-27
Tesla settles fatal Autopilot fire truck lawsuit before jury trial2026-09-02

All cases of this kind ›

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: 6 items from the primary sources

What happened, in order

  1. 2025 Earlier separate incident: a Tesla on FSD was struck by a train in eastern Pennsylvania.
  2. March Earlier separate incident: a Model 3 on FSD drove through a railroad crossing arm at 23 mph in West Covina, California.

Not dated in the sources:

  • The owner was stopped at an active level crossing when the incident began.
  • The car accelerated on its own, according to the owner.
  • The owner braked after the car had cleared the tracks.
  • Senators asked NHTSA to formally investigate FSD behaviour at rail crossings.
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
2026-04-15
D inferred by us from the described behaviour, reason shown
Who caught it
the victim
C one secondary source states it
What went wrong
physical harm
C one secondary source states it
AI agent
an AI agent acted
C one secondary source states it
primary risk
RK18
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
no harm happened
C one secondary source states it

Notes on gaps

Electrek’s commentary, reader comments and the 2025 and March incidents describe other events and were not used as facts about this incident.

LR-2026-0525 · version 1 · published 2026-11-01 after automatic checks; not yet checked field by field by a person · JSON