As of now, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is investigating two fatal accidents – both involving Ford Mustang Mach-E crossovers that crashed into stationary vehicles on the highway, one of which occurred in San Antonio, Texas, and the other, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was initially suspected and later confirmed that both of these accidents happened while Ford’s BlueCruise hands-free driving assist feature was enabled, though those investigations remain ongoing. Now, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has opened its own investigation into the matter as well.
Thus far, the NHTSA has received only news of these two incidents regarding BlueCruise, though given their similarities, decided that this was enough to warrant a closer look. Both crashes were eerily similar in that they occurred at night, and involved Mach-E crossovers running into stationary vehicles on the highway when BlueCruise was enabled. Sadly, both accidents also resulted in the death of one person as well.
The first incident occurred in Texas when the driver of a Ford Mustang Mach-E crashed into a Honda CR-V, which was reportedly stopped in the middle lane of of Interstate 10 and didn’t have its lights on. The crash resulted in the driver of the CR-V being taken to the hospital, where they wound up passing away from the injuries they sustained as a result of the impact, though the Mach-E driver wasn’t hurt. Just a few weeks later, another Mach-E ran into two stationary vehicles – a Hyundai Elantra and Toyota Prius – on I-95 in Philadelphia, leading to another fatality.
From here, the NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) will investigate Ford’s BlueCruise system in the Mach-E and evaluate its performance, though the agency also notes that the same system is present in a number of other FoMoCo-branded vehicles from the 2021 and up model years.
We’ll have more on this investigation soon, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for more Mustang Mach-E news and ongoing Ford news coverage.
Comments
Well maybe if they got the updates out in a timely manner nobody would be killed. Still waiting a year for my update that they said would be out last year.
I bought Lincoln Corsair because Ford promised BlueCruise 1.3 by September. But these Ford Corp. fraudsters concealed September of what year? There should be a legal class action lawsuit by cheated Ford and Lincoln customers.
Why do people keep on having a pop at FoMoCo, its not the vehicles, its the drivers, people become lazy.
Yup, it says you still need to pay attention to the road. If they were than this accident would have happened regardless.