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A man killed in the first known self-driving car crash may have been watching Harry Potter when the vehicle ploughed into a lorry, it has been claimed.
Police in Florida found a portable DVD player in the wreckage of the car following the incident which killed Tesla driver Joshua Brown. Today witnesses said they believed it was being used to watch an instalment of the popular film series based on J K Rowling’s novels.
According to an accident report released this week, the vehicle crashed into a turning truck while on autopilot mode after failing to distinguish the lorry’s white trailer from the brightly lit sky.
Firefighters who attended the scene on May 7 in Williston, Florida, found Mr Brown’s car hundreds of yards from the crash site and with its roof completely taken off.
Details of the incident only emerged this week as Tesla, which is owned by tech magnate Elon Musk, released its report on the crash.
But witness Robert VanKavelaar added that police at the scene told him after the incident that a “Harry Potter” movie was found to be showing on the DVD found in the car.
The driver of the truck involved in the collision also claimed Mr Brown had been "playing Harry Potter on the TV screen" when he smashed into his vehicle.
And Florida highway patrol Sergeant Kim Montes confirmed "there was a portable DVD player in the vehicle" but declined to elaborate further.
However, another witness, Terence Mulligan, cast doubt on the reports, saying he arrived on the scene before police and found no movie playing.