CNN
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Investigators with the Nationwide Freeway Visitors Security Administration and Nationwide Transportation Security Board are investigating a deadly crash involving a Ford Mustang Mach-E outfitted with superior driving help know-how.
The Mach-E drove into the again of a Honda CR-V that was stopped within the street.
“A staff of investigators from the NTSB’s Particular Investigations Department of the Workplace of Freeway Security traveled to San Antonio to look at the wreckage and acquire details about the accident web site and sequence of occasions resulting in the collision,” the NTSB stated in an announcement emailed to CNN.
NHTSA additionally confirmed that it’s investigating the identical incident. The NHTSA investigation was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Federal investigators are taking a look at dozens of crashes involving so-called superior driver help, or ADAS, techniques. Many of the crashes contain Teslas. Tesla’s Autopilot system has been available on the market longest and has the biggest variety of customers. However crashes involving automobiles made by Normal Motors’ Cadillac, Hyundai’s Genesis luxurious model and Volvo are additionally being investigated, amongst many others, in keeping with a listing offered by NHTSA.
ADAS techniques deal with primary driving duties corresponding to conserving the car in its lane whereas sustaining a protected distance behind automobiles forward, often in freeway driving solely. Some techniques, like Ford’s BlueCruise, permit drivers to take away their fingers from the steering wheel and their ft from the pedals for lengthy intervals of time on particular US highways. However drivers are monitored utilizing an inside digicam to make sure they’re listening to the street.
Fourteen of those techniques, together with two from Ford, had been recently rated by the private Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Eleven of the techniques had been rated as “Poor,” together with Ford’s BlueCruise hands-free system, and its “Adaptive Cruise Management with Cease & Go and Lane Centering Help,” which is analogous however requires drivers to maintain their fingers on the steering wheel.
It isn’t instantly clear which system was within the car that crashed in Texas.
Ford didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon the investigation.
IIHS criticized most of the ADAS techniques it examined for failing to adequately monitor the motive force’s consideration and for not doing sufficient to maintain the motive force engaged.
NTSB stated a preliminary report on the crash shall be obtainable in 30 days however a closing report into the crash will take one to 2 years. NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy has criticized NHTSA up to now for being too gradual to observe and regulate these applied sciences.