NTSB Blames Ford BlueCruise In Fatal Crashes, Asks For Federal Oversight The National Transportation Safety Board is recommending standardized performance requirements for automated vehicle technologies after determining that an "overreliance" of these systems contributed to two fatal crashes. We recently covered the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) making some broad claims about how added driver assistance features meant improved safety. The NTSB seems to be indicating the opposite, citing two fatal crashes that involved Ford’s BlueCruise system. For those unfamiliar, BlueCruise is a driver assistance feature equipped to certain models that allows hands-free driving on select highways. The system has gotten a fair bit of praise in the past. However, like Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD), it has become the subject of criticism from the National Transportation Safety Board. The federal safety agency recently published a paper ( h/t AutoGuide) calling for “standardized performance requirements and greater oversight to improve the safety of automated vehicle technology” in response to a pair of fatal incidents that took place in 2024. From the NTSB: In a Feb. 24, 2024, crash in San Antonio, a Ford traveling east in the center lane of Interstate 10 struck a stationary 1999 Honda CR-V. The Honda driver was killed, and the Ford driver sustained minor injuries. In a March 3, 2024, crash in Philadelphia, a Ford traveling north in the left lane of Interstate 95 struck two stationary vehicles — a 2012 Hyundai Elantra and a 2006 Toyota Prius — causing them to collide with a passing Toyota Corolla. The drivers of the Prius and Elantra were killed. The Ford driver sustained minor injuries, and the Corolla driver was uninjured. In both crashes, no driver-applied or system-initiated braking or steering was recorded in the moments before impact. Despite assurances from automakers and insurance companies that these