3 dead after new high school graduate crashes Cybertruck into wall

A driver in a Tesla Cybertruck pickup with three other young passengers crashed in the early hours of Wednesday on a quiet street, killing three and injuring another.

According to Piedmont police, the truck driver jumped over the cement curb and hit the concrete wall. Pictures taken at the scene show the truck crumpled between the wall and a tree.

Based on the crash site, the driver was traveling westbound on Hampton Road toward downtown and approaching King Avenue. The house on the corner where the collision occurred is across the street from Crocker Park, a popular dog park.

Early reports from others news outlets indicate the driver and passengers in the truck were 2023 graduates of Piedmont High, a public school a mile away from the crash.

According to Jeremy Bowers, Piedmont Police Chief, the crash happened shortly after 3 a.m. When officers arrived at the scene minutes later, the truck was engulfed in flames, forcing them to use fire extinguishers. The fire was too hot and they had to wait until the firemen arrived.

The authorities also mentioned speeding may have contributed to the accident.

A Piedmont Police Department communications officer told The Oaklandside that the speed limit on the road where the collision occurred is 25 miles per hour, which is also the highest posted speed limit in the small town.

“We don’t have serious collisions here because the streets are narrow and people don’t speed,” the officer said. Urban street designers have recently highlighted the need to build narrower streets to reduce collisions everywhere.

Fatalities from collisions are rare in Piedmont; the last one was 38 years ago, the police said.

The California Highway Patrol will investigate the cause of the crash. Piedmont has a jurisdictional partnership with the state agency on these types of collisions.

According to one post on Nextdoor, the young people involved had just left a party at the home of one of their parents. When the truck crashed, a friend of the students driving behind them stopped, got out and helped pull one of the students out. There is no official report on the student’s condition.

In the past year, the Tesla Cybertruck has received criticism from automotive experts about the safety of its suspensionits acceleratorand other problems. But because of their stainless steel exterior and appearance robustnessthey have been primarily marketed as safe vehicles, even as safe streets advocates and car experts have said they pose a potential danger to pedestrians, cyclists and other motorists.