Drivers in fatal Ford BlueCruise crashes were likely distracted before the collision

Two drivers involved in fatal crashes in 2024 while using Ford’s BlueCruise hands-free driving system were likely distracted in the moments before the collision, according to new information released Wednesday by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

The Safety Board released documents for each accident and announced that it will hold a public hearing on March 31 in Washington, D.C., where it will discuss the findings and potentially issue recommendations to Ford. The NTSB is an independent federal agency that investigates transportation accidents, but it does not regulate the industry. The agency is expected to issue its final report in the weeks following the March 31 hearing.

These incidents led not only to an investigation by the NTSB, but also by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). NHTSA, a safety regulator, said in early 2025 that it had determined that BlueCruise had limitations in “detecting stationary vehicles in certain conditions” and updated the probe; The regulator sent Ford a comprehensive list of questions as part of this investigation in June 2025, which the company answered in August. The investigation is ongoing.

Ford has emphasized through all of this that BlueCruise is a “convenience feature” and that drivers should always be ready to take control of the vehicle. It also warns drivers that BlueCruise “is not a collision warning or avoidance system.” Buyers of new Ford vehicles can purchase BlueCruise for a one-time fee of $2,495 or an annual subscription of $495, according to the company.

However, the NTSB investigation — and a hearing later this month — will likely shed more light on how companies like Ford communicate the purpose these driver-assistance systems are supposed to serve and how to ensure they are used properly.

Distracted driving is a topic that has come up in several other investigations into other popular driver assistance systems such as Tesla’s Autopilot and Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving (supervised)” software. The NTSB’s previous investigation into a 2018 Autopilot-related death specifically pointed to distracted driving.

“In this accident, we saw an over-reliance on technology, we saw distraction, we saw a lack of policy prohibiting cell phone use while driving, and we saw infrastructure failures, which combined led to this tragic loss,” National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Robert Sumwalt said at the time, referring to the 2018 accident.

First accident

The BlueCruise accidents occurred in early 2024. The first accident occurred 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 he collided with a stationary 1999 Honda CR-V at about 74 mph. The Ford driver was using BlueCruise just before the collision, which occurred at 9:48 p.m. local time. The Ford driver suffered minor injuries, while the Honda driver died as a result of his injuries sustained during 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 in the five seconds before the crash. The driver monitoring system detected that he was looking at the road for only a few milliseconds about 3.6 seconds before impact, and again about 1.6 seconds before impact. He received two visual and auditory alerts to monitor the road within 30 seconds before the collision, but did not apply the brakes before the collision.

The driver told the San Antonio Police Department that he was using the car’s navigation system to travel to the charging station, documents show. One report states that he “may have looked at the center screen console because directions to the charging station were displayed there.”

It’s possible he was napping before the accident, but that’s almost impossible to know for sure, based on information released Wednesday. Ford’s system captured a still image of the driver two seconds before the crash, which the NTSB says shows him “sitting upright and facing forward, with his head resting (or nearly resting) on ​​the headrest and slightly turned to the right.” The driver obtained an attorney after police questioned him, and the attorney refused to allow him to speak with the NTSB.

The second accident

The second fatal BlueCruise crash 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 she collided with a 2012 Hyundai Elantra, which was parked on the left side of the road. The Elantra collided with a 2006 Toyota Prius that had stopped in front of it.

These two drivers were friends and had stopped for an unknown reason. The Prius driver had gotten out of his car and stood to the left of the Elantra. The drivers of the Elantra and Prius died, while the driver of the Mach-E suffered minor injuries.

The driver of the Mach-E, a 23-year-old woman named Dimple Patel, was drunk at the time, according to local police. In late 2024, she was charged with DUI manslaughter. It was traveling at about 72 mph before the collision despite being in a construction zone limited to 45 mph. Zach Goldstein, Patel’s attorney, told TechCrunch on Wednesday that the case is still pending and no trial date has been set.

New NTSB documents show that the driver monitoring system in Battle’s car recorded her eyes as being “on the road” for a full five seconds before the crash. But a photo taken two seconds before the collision shows her holding a phone above the steering wheel, well away from the driver monitoring system.

Ford did not immediately respond to a request for questions about whether it was aware of this potential deficiency in its driver monitoring system, or if the company had done anything to mitigate it.

What about automatic emergency braking?

Modern Ford vehicles are equipped with Forward Collision Warning (FCW) and Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB), which are separate from BlueCruise.

In addition to warning that BlueCruise “is not a collision warning or avoidance system,” Ford also warns owners in small print that FCW and AEB are “driver-assist” features that are “supplemental” and “do not replace the driver’s attention, judgment, or need to control the vehicle.”

Perhaps that’s because Ford sees real limitations in the capabilities of the technology that powers these systems, a combination of camera and radar sensors.

The NTSB says in one report on the Texas crash that it held meetings with Ford employees about AEB’s “response to fixed targets in circumstances similar to this accident.”

Ford employees told the NTSB that “[b]Given the functional limitations of industry sensor technologies, combined with vehicle speed scenarios, approaching vehicle maneuvers and environmental factors, Ford does not expect the current generation of radar- and camera-integrated AEB systems to detect and classify a collision 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 either fatal crash.