‘Autopilot’ Tesla crash driver Sakshi Agrawal pleads guilty in County Court
A P-plater who mowed down a commuter with her Tesla in Armadale lied to police when she told them the car was on ‘autopilot’ as she pleaded guilty just days before her trial was set to begin.
Melbourne City
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A P-plater who mowed down a commuter about to board a tram with her Tesla lied to police when she told them the car was on ‘autopilot’.
Sakshi Agrawal, 24, hit 26-year-old nurse Nicole Lagos — on her way to work at Alfred Health — about 6.30am at a tram stop on Wattletree Rd in Armadale in March 2022.
She then fled the scene.
On Tuesday, Agrawal appeared for a plea hearing in the County Court in Melbourne on Tuesday, just days before her trial was set to begin, after earlier pleading guilty to charges of dangerous driving causing serious injury and failing to stop after an accident.
The police summary of facts, tendered to the County Court, stated Ms Lagos was boarding the tram when she was hit and thrown about 8m into the air.
The driver and passengers on the tram heard a loud thud, while a driver in another car saw Ms Lagos fly as high as the tram stop sign.
Agarwal continued to drive at speed for another 3km before stopping at Epping St in Malvern.
There, she contacted her housemate and her partner saying she’d hit someone, was scared and didn’t know what to do.
Her partner picked her up and drove her back to the scene where she was arrested.
Agrawal told police she panicked after the crash, her Tesla was on autopilot and the tram hadn’t yet stopped.
She said it was dark, Ms Lagos had jumped in front of her car and her Tesla could not detect her, and it was too late to brake.
She said she thought she could “just make it” as the tram was about to stop.
Despite her initial claim, investigations revealed the autopilot function of the Tesla was not active but it did trigger an alert for a potential collision when it was about 4m away from Ms Lagos.
The specialist care nurse was taken to the same hospital where she worked, placed in an induced coma and operated on for more than four hours.
She spent 21 days in hospital before she was transferred to a rehabilitation unit for treatment for traumatic brain injury.
Ms Lagos’ brain injury impacts in a number of ways and she experiences sleep difficulties and severe depression which require medication and both psychiatric and psychological treatment.
Ms Lagos read her victim impact statement from video link and said she had a passion for running, she was going to the gym six days a week, was looking at extending her running times and was working towards competing for marathon prior to the crash.
Now, she said, she couldn’t concentrate for more than an hour and felt “clumsy”.
Ms Lagos said she wanted to find a partner and have kids but now suffered from low self-confidence, loneliness and felt isolated a lot of the time.
“My social calendar is looking a lot emptier now,” she said.
Agrawal, who was employed by Victoria Police but subcontracted by an external agency to work as a loading dock manager, was on her P-plates and only allowed to drive an automatic car at the time of the crash.
Defence lawyer Nicholas Papas KC submitted a community corrections order would be an appropriate sentence because Agrawal was already suffering from PTSD and had written two apology letters to Ms Lagos.
However, prosecutor Lauren Gurry called for a custodial sentence given she fled the scene and had no regard for Ms Lagos’ health and safety.
She had ample time, she said, to stop for the tram but instead tried to beat it.
She will be sentenced on May 10.
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