On Friday, September 2nd, 2022, a passenger, Louise Lesser, captured video showing a Tesla driver appearing to be sleeping at the wheel while exceeding 100 km/h on the QEW near St. Catharines around 7 a.m

"I thought he was crazy because, obviously, a car has to have a driver," Lesser told CTV News Toronto on Friday. "I told him to slow down because I wanted to see."

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The video shows the driver reclined in their seat with their eyes closed.

Lesser said the surrounding traffic was at around 105 km/h at the time.

"When I was able to see in, the guy, he opened his eyes for maybe a split second, and then closed his eyes again and was fully asleep," she said. "He was behind a dump truck and all I could think is 'If that truck slams on the brake suddenly, what would happen?'"

Smartly, Lesser’s partner considered honking their car horn to wake the driver up, but thought that may startle the driver awake and cause a collision.
"I thought it was insane. I've seen traffic, especially on the QEW, it goes from being fully open, you are able to do 100 km/h, to being at a standstill in two seconds,” she said. “To know this guy wasn’t awake, it almost made me not want to be on the highway."

Lesser said the driver was asleep for 10 to 15 minutes and only woke up and started steering when he got closer to Lewiston and Fort Erie split.

The Ontario Provincial Police are aware of the video and Sgt. Kerry Schmidt had this to say toward Lesser:

"If this person is truly asleep, I don't know why the person recording the video would take the video rather than call 911,” Schmidt said. “Is this person medical distress? What's going on inside that vehicle? It leaves a little bit of a suspicious thought in my mind as to whether this is actually legitimate or if this is staged? I don't know.”

Lesser told CTV News Toronto she did not call 911 because she couldn't get a clear look at the vehicle’s licence plate, which could’ve easily been found if the filming car slowed down…

There’s no investigation currently as there’s been no complaint made - only a social media video.

The EV automaker’s website says that their current Autopilot features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous.