Two drivers involved in fatal crashes while using Ford’s BlueCruise hands-free driving system in 2024 were likely distracted moments before impact, according to new data released Wednesday by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
The safety board has released documents related to each accident and announced it will hold a public hearing in Washington on March 31 to discuss its findings and possibly make recommendations to Ford. The NTSB is an independent federal agency that investigates traffic accidents but does not regulate the industry. The agency is expected to release a final report in the weeks following the March 31 hearing.
The accidents prompted an investigation not only by the NTSB, but also by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). NHTSA, the safety regulator, said in early 2025 that BlueCruise had limitations in “detecting stationary vehicles under certain conditions” and improved the sensor; The regulator sent a full list of questions to Ford as part of that investigation June 2025which company he answered in August. The investigation is ongoing.
Despite all this, Ford has argued that BlueCruise is a “convenience feature” and that drivers should always be ready to drive the car. He too warns drivers is not BlueCruise’s “accident warning or avoidance system.” Buyers of new Ford vehicles can purchase BlueCruise for a one-time fee of $2,495 or an annual subscription fee of $495. according to the company.
However, the NTSB’s investigation — and a hearing later this month — will likely focus more on what purpose these driver assistance systems are supposed to serve and how companies like Ford should ensure they’re being used properly.
Distracted driving is a topic that has come up in various studies of Tesla’s now-retired Autopilot and other popular driver assistance systems, such as its “Full Self-Driving (Supervised)” program. NTSBs advance research A 2018 fatality involving Autopilot singled out the distracted driver.
“In this accident, we saw an overreliance on technology, distraction, a lack of a policy prohibiting cell phone use while driving, and infrastructure failures that combined to lead to this tragic loss,” said NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt, referring to the 2018 crash.
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The first accident
The BlueCruise accidents occurred in early 2024. The first took place in February of that year in San Antonio, Texas. The driver of a 2022 Ford Mustang Mach-E was traveling in the center lane of Interstate 10 when it collided with a stationary 1999 Honda CR-V at approximately 74 mph. The Ford driver was using the BlueCruise just before the impact, which occurred at 21:48 local time. The driver of the Ford suffered minor injuries, while the driver of the Honda died as a result of the injuries sustained in the accident.
New information released by the NTSB on Wednesday shows that Ford’s camera-based driver monitoring system recorded the driver looking at the main infotainment screen five seconds before the crash. The driver’s monitoring system detected him looking at the road for a fraction of a second about 3.6 seconds before the crash and again about 1.6 seconds before the crash. He received two visual and audible warnings to follow the road 30 seconds before the crash, but did not brake before impact.
The driver told the San Antonio Police Department that he used the car’s navigation system to navigate to the charging station, documents show. One report states that “he may have been looking at the center display console as it showed directions to the charging station.”
It’s possible he was nodding off before the crash, but it’s impossible to tell for sure based on reports Wednesday. Ford’s system captured a still image of the driver two seconds before the crash, which the NTSB said showed him “sitting upright and looking forward, with his head resting (or almost resting) on the headrest and slightly turned to the right.” After police interviewed him, the driver obtained an attorney, and the attorney refused to allow him to speak with the NTSB.
Second accident
The second fatal BlueCruise accident occurred in March 2024 in Philadelphia. The driver of a 2022 Mach-E was traveling on Interstate 95 at 3:16 a.m. local time when it collided with a 2012 Hyundai Elantra parked on the left side of the road. The Elantra hit a 2006 Toyota Prius parked in front of it.
The two drivers were friends and stopped for an unknown reason, while the driver of the Prius got out of his car and stopped to the left of the Elantra. Both drivers of the Elantra and Prius were killed, and the driver of the Mach-E suffered minor injuries.
According to local police, the driver of the Mach-E, 23-year-old Dimple Patel, was drunk at the time. In late 2024, he was Charged with DUI manslaughter. He was traveling at about 72 mph before impact, despite being in a construction zone with a 45 mph limit. Patel’s attorney, Zach Goldstein, told TechCrunch on Wednesday that the case is still ongoing and a trial date has not been set.
The driver monitoring system in Patel’s car recorded his eyes being “on the road” five seconds before the crash, new NTSB documents show. But a photo taken two seconds before the impact shows him holding the phone over the steering wheel and almost out of the driver monitoring system.
Ford did not immediately respond to questions about whether it was aware of this potential shortcoming of the driver monitoring system or whether the company had taken any steps to mitigate it.
What about automatic emergency braking?
Modern Ford vehicles are equipped with Forward Collision Warning (FCW) and Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) separate from BlueCruise.
In addition to BlueCruise’s caveat that it’s “not an accident warning or avoidance system,” neither is Ford warns They wrote in the fine print that FCW and AEB are “driver assistance” functions that are “supplementary” and “do not replace the driver’s attention, judgment and need to control the vehicle”.
That may be because Ford sees real limits to the capabilities of the technology powering these systems — a mix of camera and radar sensors.
The NTSB said in one of its reports on the Texas crash that it held meetings with Ford personnel about “AEB response to stationary targets under conditions similar to this crash.”
Ford staff told the NTSB that “(b) the functional limitations of the industry’s sensor technologies, combined with the vehicle speed, nearby vehicle maneuvers and environmental factors scenario, Ford will not wait for current generation radar-camera fusion AEB systems to detect and classify a crash target with sufficient confidence for the AEB system to respond.”
To that end, the NTSB noted in documents released Wednesday that no vehicle subsystem applied any brakes in any of the fatal crashes.
