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 crash, according to new information was released Wednesday by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
The safety board released documents on each crash and announced it will hold a public hearing on March 31 in Washington, D.C., where it will discuss the findings and possibly issue recommendations to Ford. The NTSB is an independent federal agency that investigates transportation 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). The NHTSA, which is a safety regulator, said in early 2025 that it had determined that BlueCruise has limitations in “detecting stationary vehicles in certain conditions” and upgraded the detector. The regulator sent Ford an exhaustive list of questions as part of that investigation in June 2025, which the company he answered in August. The investigation is ongoing.
Ford has argued in all of this that BlueCruise is a “convenience feature” and that drivers should always be ready to take control of the vehicle. Also warns Drivers say BlueCruise is “not a collision warning or avoidance system.” New Ford vehicle buyers can purchase BlueCruise for a one-time fee of $2,495 or an annual subscription of $495; according to the company.
That said, the NTSB’s investigation — and hearing later this month — will likely bring more focus to how companies like Ford communicate what purpose these driver assistance systems are supposed to serve and how to ensure they’re used properly.
Distracted driving is an issue that has emerged in various other studies of other popular driver assistance systems, such as Tesla’s now-retired Autopilot and its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) software. The NTSB previous research in an Autopilot-related fatality in 2018, he singled out distracted driving.
“In this accident we saw an overreliance on technology, we saw distraction, we saw a lack of a policy prohibiting cell phone use while driving, and we saw infrastructure failures that, when combined, led to this tragic loss,” NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt said at the time, referring to the 2018 accident.
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The first crash
The BlueCruise crash occurred in early 2024. The first 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 crashed into a stationary 1999 Honda CR-V at approximately 74 mph. The Ford driver was using the BlueCruise shortly 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 injuries sustained in the crash.
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 him only looking at the road for a fraction of a second at about 3.6 seconds before the crash and again at about 1.6 seconds before the crash. He received two visual and audible alerts to watch the road in the 30 seconds before the crash, but did not brake before impact.
Documents show the driver told the San Antonio Police Department he was using the vehicle’s navigation system to travel to a charging station. One of the reports states that he “may have looked at the center display console because the directions to the charging station were displayed there.”
It’s possible he was nodding off before the crash, but it’s almost impossible to say for sure, based on the 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 rotated to the right.” The driver obtained an attorney after being interviewed by police, and the attorney refused to allow him to speak with the NTSB.
The second crash
BlueCruise’s second fatal 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 he crashed into a 2012 Hyundai Elantra, which was stopped on the left side of the road. The Elantra struck a 2006 Toyota Prius that was stopped in front of it.
These two drivers were friends and had stopped for an unknown reason, and the driver of the Prius had gotten out of his car and was standing to the left of the Elantra. Both Elantra and Prius drivers died, while the Mach-E driver 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 he was charged with DUI manslaughter. He was traveling at about 72 mph before the impact, even though he was in a construction zone restricted to 45 mph. Zak Goldstein, Patel’s attorney, told TechCrunch on Wednesday that the case is still pending and no trial date has been set.
The new NTSB documents show that the driver monitoring system in Patel’s car recorded her eyes being “on the road” for all of five seconds before the crash. But the photo taken two seconds before the impact appears to show her holding a phone over the steering wheel and almost completely out of the driver’s monitoring system.
Ford did not immediately respond to a request for questions about whether it was aware of this potential shortcoming of its driver monitoring system or whether the company has 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 fine print owners that FCW and AEB are “driver assistance” features that are “supplemental” and “do not replace the driver’s attention, judgment and need to control the vehicle.”
That may be because Ford sees real limitations to the capabilities of the technology powering these systems — a mix of cameras and radar sensors.
The NTSB states in one of its reports on the Texas crash that it held meetings with Ford personnel regarding “AEB response to stationary targets in conditions similar to this accident.”
Ford officials told the NTSB that, “[b]Given the operational limitations of industry detection technologies, combined with the scenario of vehicle travel speed, nearby vehicle maneuvers and environmental factors, Ford would not expect the current generation of AEB radar-camera fusion 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 failed in any of the fatal crashes.
