Tesla’s Full Self‑Driving System Crashes Through Railroad Crossing Barriers in Viral Video

The incident captured by a Threads user on March 8 adds a stark visual to the growing dossier of Full‑Self‑Driving (FSD) failures at railroad crossings, a blind spot that regulators have flagged for months. In the dash‑cam clip, a Model 3 traveling at roughly 23 mph in the Los Angeles suburb of West Covina barrels through lowered crossing gates that sit at the height of the vehicle’s front‑facing cameras. The system offers no warning, deceleration, or evasive maneuver; the driver only manages to press the brakes moments before impact, according to the video posted by Laushi Liu and reported by Electrek. The timing is notable: the clip went live on the same day the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) demanded that Tesla hand over critical crash data for its ongoing FSD investigation, a deadline that has already been extended twice.

Electrek notes that the NHTSA probe, launched in October 2025, already links 58 incidents to FSD, including 14 crashes and 23 injuries, and specifically targets railroad‑crossing violations alongside red‑light runs and lane‑crossing errors. By December 2025, the agency’s tally had risen to 80 documented violations drawn from 62 driver complaints, four Tesla internal reports, and four media accounts. The investigation now covers roughly 2.88 million Teslas equipped with the FSD package, and NHTSA is pressing for detailed telemetry that shows vehicle behavior from 30 seconds before each event, the software version in use, driver alerts, and any resulting injuries or fatalities. Tesla has told the agency it must manually review 8,313 records and can process about 300 per day, a bottleneck that has forced the two deadline extensions—from the original January 19 target to February 23, and now to today, March 9.

The West Covina video is not an isolated glitch. NBC News previously cataloged more than 40 social‑media reports of FSD mishaps at railroad crossings, interviewing six drivers and obtaining video evidence from four. One documented case involved a Model 3 that, while on FSD, entered the tracks in eastern Pennsylvania and was struck by a train after the occupants evacuated. The pattern of failures prompted Senators Ed Markey and Richard Blumenthal to write to NHTSA urging a formal inquiry into the system’s handling of railroad crossings, underscoring bipartisan concern over a technology marketed as “Full Self‑Driving” yet operating at Level 2, requiring constant driver supervision. Commenters on Liu’s post echoed this criticism, pointing out the discrepancy between the product’s branding and its actual capabilities.

From a market perspective, the viral footage could exacerbate the regulatory pressure Tesla already faces and influence investor sentiment. The company’s FSD subscription model, which generated roughly $1.4 billion in revenue last year, hinges on the perception of safety and reliability. Repeated high‑profile failures—especially those that occur at predictable, static hazards like crossing gates—challenge the narrative that FSD can be safely deployed at scale. Moreover, the NHTSA’s demand for granular data may expose systemic deficiencies that could trigger recalls, software mandates, or even restrictions on the feature’s availability. Such outcomes would not only affect Tesla’s bottom line but also set a precedent for how autonomous‑driving aids are regulated across the industry.

In the short term, the West Covina incident adds urgency to Tesla’s compliance efforts. The company must decide whether to accelerate the manual review process, automate data extraction, or negotiate further extensions with NHTSA. Failure to meet the agency’s requirements could invite enforcement actions, including fines or mandatory software updates that limit FSD functionality until safety benchmarks are met. For investors and analysts, the episode serves as a reminder that the commercial promise of FSD remains contingent on resolving these safety gaps, and that the regulatory landscape is likely to tighten as more evidence of real‑world failures surfaces.