— The National Transportation Safety Board says Ford BlueCruise safety issues contributed to fatal crashes that occurred in Pennsylvania and Texas.
Both crashes involved Ford Mustang Mach-E SUVs traveling more than 70 mph on highways at night with hands-free BlueCruise engaged, and both crashes involved stationary vehicles.
Both incidents also involved drivers who took no evasive actions, and the BlueCruise systems didn't either.
The NTSB concluded the Ford drivers relied too much on the BlueCruise systems, treating the systems as self-driving instead of what they are: driver assistance systems.
Since the beginning of the investigation, Ford has repeatedly said BlueCruise is not a crash avoidance system and automatic emergency braking is a driver assistance feature used to supplement driving, not take its place.
According to Ford, the systems “do not replace the driver’s attention, judgment, and need to control the vehicle.”
Ford Mach-E BlueCruise Crash in Texas
The February 2024 San Antonio crash occurred when a Ford Mach-E SUV with BlueCruise engaged was traveling on Interstate 10 when it slammed into a stationary 1999 Honda CR-V. The crash killed the Honda driver and injured the Ford driver.
The crash caused the Honda to rotate counterclockwise and overturn onto its roof before coming to rest on the left shoulder of I-10.
Federal safety investigators found the Texas crash was primarily caused by the Ford Mach-E driver who was distracted by the navigation system. Instead of being an attentive driver driving at night, the Ford driver relied on the BlueCruise system's hands-free partial automation system.
The Ford driver also received two alerts to pay attention to the road 30 seconds before the crash but still did nothing to avoid the crash.
However, contributing to the crash were the BlueCruise system which didn't detect the forward vehicle and the automatic emergency braking system which failed to respond to the forward stationary vehicle stopped in the center lane.
Ford Mach-E BlueCruise Crash in Pennsylvania
The deadly March 2024 Philadelphia crash occurred at 3:16 a.m. in an Interstate 95 work zone, with a reduced speed limit of 45 mph. A 2012 Hyundai Elantra and a 2006 Toyota Prius were stationary in the left travel lane with the Elantra stopped behind the Prius. A 2018 Toyota Corolla was traveling in the center lane as it approached the stationary vehicles.
That's when the 2022 Ford Mustang Mach-E SUV, traveling 72 mph, slammed into the rear of the Hyundai Elantra which sent the Elantra forward into the Prius. Both the Elantra and Prius flew forward and into the passing Toyota Corolla.
The Prius driver was killed while standing near the vehicle, then the Ford slammed into and killed the Hyundai driver who had exited the Elantra.
The Ford Mach-E driver did nothing to avoid the crash and neither did the BlueCruise system.
The NTSB concluded the Pennsylvania crash was caused by the failure of the Ford driver to respond to the stationary vehicles because she was drunk and had been smoking weed. The Ford driver, 23-year-old pre-med student Dimple Patel, was also distracted by her cell phone due to overreliance and misuse of the BlueCruise system.
The Ford driver told a state trooper she didn't know what happened but she may have passed out while driving. Patel also was oblivious to the severity of what she had done as she looked for her cell phone to call her family.
The state trooper noted how Patel looked at one of the fatally injured individuals who was covered by a blanket and asked if the person under the blanket was okay.
And according to the NTSB report:
"Contributing to the crash was the driver’s operation of the vehicle about 27 mph over the speed limit in a work zone. Further contributing to the crash was the Ford Motor Company’s inadequate integration of its active speed management system with its partial automation system, which permitted excessive speed, including in a work zone."
The NTSB cannot make changes to laws or vehicles as the agency can only make formal recommendations. According to the Ford BlueCruise crash investigation, some of the blame is aimed at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
NTSB investigators say NHTSA should make changes to Level 2 partial automation systems offered by all automakers, especially regarding event data recorders, also called vehicle black boxes.
NHTSA should also require all Level 2 vehicles to be "equipped with driver monitoring systems capable of minimizing driver disengagement, automation complacency, and misuse of vehicle automation."
The NTSB says Level 2 systems, at a minimum, should provide:
"[W]arnings about accumulated short glances over a prolonged period of time; differentiating genuine on-road glances from attention directed to objects, such as cell phones, located in the driver’s forward line of sight; and? issuing initial and subsequent multi-modal alerts at intervals that minimize eyes-off-road duration.?"
As for Ford, the NTSB recommends the automaker revise the driver monitoring systems to provide warnings about short distractions over prolonged periods.
According to the report, Ford should:
"Modify your BlueCruise system for new vehicles to require that the automatic emergency braking system is engaged and that the Intelligent Adaptive Cruise Control system uses appropriate speed tolerances to mitigate excessive speeding, taking into consideration the system’s operational capabilities as well as traffic and highway complexity."
The NTSB investigation is separate from an investigation opened by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
