Photo: Victor Golmer, iStock
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is investigating two separate fatal collisions involving Ford’s BlueCruise hands-free driving system.
The NHTSA identified two nighttime incidents where a Ford Mustang Mach E using BlueCruise collided with stationary vehicles in travel lanes on highways. In the first crash in February 2023, the National Transportation Safety Board says that a Mustang Mach E crashed into the back of a Honda CR-V that was stopped in the center lane of a San Antonio freeway, killing the 56-year-old driver of the CR-V. The second incident was in March, when a Mach E collided with a Hyundai Elantra and a Toyota Prius on a Philadelphia freeway, killing drivers in both the Elantra and Prius.
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Ford’s BlueCruise technology is designed to only be used on certain roadways for hands-free lane and speed adjustments. It uses cameras that monitor the driver’s attentiveness, and prompts the driver to take back full control of the vehicle if it looks as though their attention is drifting.
