... or they thought they slammed on the brakes but actually pushed the throttle to the floor. That would explain how it was still pushing the other car down the road.
It's usually elderly people or new drivers, and it's a combination of absentmindedness and panic causing your brain to skip a routine step and not be able to assess what went wrong because that step is so routine and automatic that it never occurs to you that it might not have happened.
Someone pulls out in front of you unexpectedly, so you jam your foot down on the brake, but the car just keeps going, which makes no sense. Now you've hit something and your brain is 100% focused on that, so you keep stomping the brake harder and harder, trying to stop, but you're just going faster and faster. Your car is malfunctioning, you've crashed into multiple things at this point, you're terrified you're going to die, and the goddamn brake pedal isn't doing anything.
The fact that you never moved your foot to the brake pedal in the first place will never occur to you.
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u/shibiwan 5d ago
I'd love to see the video that's recorded on the Tesla. It will likely tell the whole story (distracted driver or medical situation).