Every year at CES, BMW and other automakers setup test drives for visitors who would like, for a few minutes, to get behind a BMW. From M cars to limousine and electric cars, BMW offers a little bit of everything for everyone. But excitement can get the best of some people.
This weekend, many bystanders were snapping photos of a totaled BMW, right in front of the Las Vegas Convention Center. Sometime around 1:45 p.m. PT on Saturday, a person was test driving a BMW M6 when, according to a witness on Twitter, they accelerated too hard into a turn, hit a lamppost and wound up facing the wrong direction in oncoming traffic.
For CNET, a BMW spokesman confirmed a crash, identifying the driver as a CES attendee. The car was a standard production BMW M6 and not a self-driving vehicle.
Someone totaled a @BMW during a test drive at #CES2017 and just dipped…. pic.twitter.com/e8e1h86zd8
— Phil Johnston (@virt_phil) January 7, 2017
BMW says the driver, the only occupant of the vehicle, was uninjured. While a video on Facebook shows a person being wheeled away from the BMW tents on a stretcher, accompanied by a dog and two paramedics, a Las Vegas police representative confirmed to CNET that there were no serious injuries at the scene.
According to a CES attendee who test-drove one of BMW’s vehicles Friday, BMW had been asking would-be drivers to sign a waiver acknowledging that they’d need to pay the full value of the vehicle if it were damaged.
Charges against the driver are pending, according to BMW.