Why Ben Fordham’s face is confusing cars in Sydney traffic

Ben Fordham has been making life difficult for drivers recently, with his face on the back of Sydney buses reportedly confusing car autopilot systems.

2GB’s newly crowned King of Sydney Breakfast radio found out that ads for his show have been throwing out Tesla cars, and some have been automatically “slamming on the brakes” when they sense his face on the back of a bus.

Fordham spoke about the “bizarre” issue on his Tuesday show.

“What’s happening is that there’s a function in Tesla vehicles called autopilot. But the computer looks at what’s going on around and if it identifies what it believes to be a pedestrian, it will hit on the brakes,” Fordham said.

“[It] thinks that I’m a pedestrian as opposed to a poster!”

The issue was first reported by Australian electronics engineer David Jones, who posted a video of one of the buses in question.

“I’m sorry that my face is partly responsible for the issue… it’s slamming on the brakes thinking I’m a real person!” Fordham added.

“I am a real person, but I’m not all over Sydney in many different locations at exactly the same time.”