Tesla owners discover shockingly easy trick to bypass driver checks

Tesla’s driver-monitoring system was designed to make sure people stay focused on the road.

Now, some drivers have reportedly found a surprisingly simple way around it: a plastic doll head.

Tesla owners in China are mounting small figurine heads near the rearview mirror to fool the cabin-facing camera that monitors driver attention during Autopilot and Full Self-Driving use.

The system normally tracks a driver's face, head position and eye direction. If it determines that the driver has looked away from the road for too long, it issues warnings and can eventually disable assisted-driving features.

But according to reports, some owners have discovered that placing a forward-facing plastic head in front of the camera can make the system believe a driver is still paying attention.

One Tesla Model 3 owner reportedly used a figurine modeled after Dwayne Johnson and managed to drive for around 30 minutes without triggering an alert.

The figurines, many designed to resemble celebrities and public figures, are reportedly being sold online for the equivalent of roughly $10 to $40.

The trend has drawn attention because it highlights how a low-cost toy can potentially bypass a safety feature that was introduced to address earlier loopholes.

Before Tesla relied heavily on cabin cameras, some drivers used steering-wheel weights to trick the vehicle into thinking their hands were on the wheel. The cabin-monitoring camera was introduced as a more advanced solution.

Now, critics say drivers have simply found a new workaround.

The irony has not been lost on social media users, many of whom are joking that a plastic action figure has managed to outsmart technology worth tens of thousands of dollars.

The systems still require an attentive human driver behind the wheel, however, and experts continue to warn that bypassing safety measures can significantly increase the risk of accidents.