Police investigate Tesla driver spotted in backseat, but he doubles down on dangerous behavior

A reckless Tesla driver who has been spotted driving from the backseat of his Model 3 is now being investigated by the local police.

Yet, he is doubling down on the dangerous behavior.

Many Tesla drivers have been fighting back against misuses of Tesla Autopilot since it is giving the technology a bad name and some fear that it could result in regulators trying to impede it.

Last week, Electrek put a new Tesla owner on blast for being filmed in the Bay Area on several occasions driving on the highway while being in the back seat of his vehicle.

In videos filmed by passersby and posted on social media, a young man is seen driving on the highway in his Tesla vehicle, which has a new car tag, but he is doing it from the back seat.

It goes against Tesla’s instructions on how to use Autopilot, but more importantly is considered dangerous driving and illegal.

After we reported on the driver, we received a lot of information on the young man in question, and people who knew him reported him to the police.

Param Sharma is from San Francisco and goes by Lavish P on social media.

He made headlines before for flashing his wealth on social media in ridiculous and trolling ways, but he is now pushing it further by misusing a driver assist technology and putting other people at risk.

A few days after we reported on Sharma and other media picked up the story, the California Highway Patrol announced that they are investigating the situation.

They wrote in a statement:

“CHP MADE AWARE OF AN UNUSUAL INCIDENT INVOLVING A TESLA The California Highway Patrol (CHP) has been made aware of an incident involving a man riding in the backseat of a Tesla traveling on Bay Area roadways, with no other person being seated in the driver seat. The CHP received a report of the incident as third-hand information, and it is under investigation.”

The police recommends that anyone seeing him or anyone else doing something similar should call 911.

However, the investigation from the police is not deterring Sharma, who is doubling down on his dangerous behavior.

He posted another video to Instagram in which he taunts the CHP in the description and shows himself again driving his Tesla from the back seat (obviously, we are not linking to his account since that’s what he wants):

On his social media so far, he posted about half a dozen pieces of video evidence of him dangerously operating his vehicle by misusing Tesla’s Autopilot features.

The latest video is from last night, despite the investigation being announced by the CHP last weekend.

Update: The driver has been arrested