10 Times People Died While Watching Movies

6. A Tesla Owner Crashed His Car While Watching Harry Potter

Harry Potter Scar Thumb 2
Warner Bros.

This entry differs from the others on this list since it didn't take place in a theatre, but it's still a deeply tragic story that acts as a cautionary tale for people who drive on a regular basis.

For better or worse, self-driving cars are a thing, and one day, maybe they'll be the only thing available to automobile owners. Being able to sit behind the wheel and let the car do the heavy lifting is both a convenience and a danger, two things that 40-year-old Joshua Brown discovered in 2016.

Brown was driving down a highway in Williston, Florida, when he put his Tesla Model S into autopilot mode, which took the reigns and started to control the car. At this point, Brown started watching a Harry Potter movie on a portable DVD player, before his car slammed full-speed into a large white trailer up ahead.

Self-driving car or regular car, it's important to always remain alert while on the road, and though Deathly Hallows Part 2 is a bloody good movie, we can't recommend watching it - or any other Harry Potter movie, for that matter - while driving.

Contributor
Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!