Investigators say drivers in deadly Ford BlueCruise crashes were likely distracted before impact

Two motorists involved in separate fatal crashes in 2024 while Ford's BlueCruise hands-free driving technology was active were likely distracted in the moments leading up to the collisions, according to new material released Wednesday by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

The safety agency published documents related to both crashes. It said it will hold a public hearing on March 31 in Washington, D.C., to review the findings and make recommendations to Ford. The NTSB is an independent federal body that investigates transportation accidents, though it does not regulate the industry. A final report is expected in the weeks after the March 31 hearing.

The crashes prompted investigations by both the NTSB and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The NHTSA, which serves as a safety regulator, said in early 2025 that it had found BlueCruise has limitations in the "detection of stationary vehicles in certain conditions" and upgraded its probe. As part of that investigation, the regulator sent Ford a detailed set of questions in June 2025, and the automaker responded in August. That investigation remains ongoing.

Ford has consistently said that BlueCruise is a "convenience feature" and that drivers must remain prepared at all times to retake control of the vehicle. The company also warns customers that BlueCruise is "not a crash warning or avoidance system." Buyers of new Ford vehicles can obtain BlueCruise through a one-time payment of $2,495 or by paying a yearly subscription fee of $495, according to the company.

Even so, the NTSB investigation — and the public hearing scheduled for later this month — will likely draw greater attention to the way automakers such as Ford explain the intended role of driver-assistance systems and how they should be used safely and correctly.

Distracted driving has also surfaced as a recurring issue in other probes involving widely used driver-assistance technologies, including Tesla's now-retired Autopilot and its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) software. In particular, the NTSB's earlier investigation into a 2018 death involving Autopilot highlighted driver distraction.

"In this crash, 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, when combined, led to this tragic loss," former NTSB chairman Robert Sumwalt said at the time, referring to the 2018 crash.

The first crash

The fatal BlueCruise crashes occurred in the early part of 2024. The first happened in February of that year in San Antonio, Texas. The driver of a 2022 Ford Mustang Mach-E was travelling in the centre lane of Interstate 10 when he struck a stationary 1999 Honda CR-V at roughly 74 miles per hour. BlueCruise was engaged shortly before the collision, which occurred at 9:48 p.m. local time. The Ford driver suffered minor injuries, while the driver of the Honda died from injuries sustained in the crash.

New details published by the NTSB on Wednesday show that the Mach-E's camera-based driver-monitoring system recorded the driver looking at the main infotainment display during the five seconds leading up to the collision. The system only registered him looking at the road for brief fractions of a second at around 3.6 seconds before impact, and again at about 1.6 seconds before impact. He received two visual and audio alerts instructing him to watch the road for 30 seconds before the crash, but he did not apply the brakes before hitting the vehicle.

The documents say the driver told the San Antonio Police Department that he had been using the car's navigation system while heading to a charging station. One of the reports states that "he may have looked at the centre screen console because directions to the charging station were displayed there."

It is possible the driver was nodding off before the crash, though the information released Wednesday makes it nearly impossible to determine that with certainty. Ford's system captured a still image of the driver two seconds before impact, which the NTSB said showed him "sitting upright and facing forward, with his head resting (or nearly resting) on the headrest and slightly rotated to the right." After speaking with the police, the driver retained an attorney, who declined to allow him to be interviewed by the NTSB.

The second crash

The second fatal BlueCruise crash took place in March 2024 in Philadelphia. The driver of a 2022 Mach-E was travelling on Interstate 95 at 3:16 a.m. local time when she collided with a 2012 Hyundai Elantra that was stopped on the left side of the roadway. The Elantra had struck a 2006 Toyota Prius that was stopped in front of it.

The two drivers of those vehicles were friends and had pulled over for an unknown reason. The Prius driver had exited his car and was standing to the left of the Elantra. Both the Elantra and Prius drivers were killed, while the Mach-E driver suffered minor injuries.

According to local police, the Mach-E driver, a 23-year-old woman identified as Dimple Patel, was intoxicated at the time of the crash. In late 2024, she was charged with DUI homicide. She was travelling at approximately 72 miles per hour before impact, despite being in a construction zone with a 45-mile-per-hour speed limit. Zak Goldstein, an attorney representing Patel, said on Wednesday that the case remains pending and that no trial date has been set.

The new NTSB documents show that the driver-monitoring system in Patel's vehicle registered her eyes as being "on-road" for the full five seconds before the collision. But a photograph taken two seconds before impact appears to show her holding a phone above the steering wheel, largely outside the driver-monitoring system's view.

Ford did not immediately respond to questions about whether it was aware of this possible weakness in the driver-monitoring system or had taken any steps to address it.

What about automatic emergency braking?

Modern Ford vehicles come with a forward-collision warning (FCW) system and automatic emergency braking (AEB), both of which are separate from BlueCruise.

Alongside its warning that BlueCruise is "not a crash warning or avoidance system," Ford also tells owners in fine print that FCW and AEB are "driver-assist" technologies that are "supplemental," and "do not replace the driver's attention, judgment, and need to control the vehicle."

That may reflect Ford's own view that the underlying technology powering those systems — which combines cameras and radar sensors — has real limitations.

In one of the reports on the Texas crash, the NTSB said it met with Ford employees to discuss "AEB response to stationary targets in conditions similar to this crash."

According to the report, Ford staff told the NTSB that, "[b]ased on the functional limitations of the industry's sensing technologies, coupled with the scenario of vehicle travel speed, nearby vehicle maneuvers & environmental factors, Ford would not expect the current generation of radar-camera fusion AEB systems to detect and classify a collision target with enough confidence for the AEB system to respond."

With that in mind, the NTSB noted in the documents released Wednesday that no subsystem in either vehicle applied any braking in either of the two fatal crashes.