NHTSA opens a review of five comma.ai crashes that killed three people
The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened a preliminary evaluation of five crashes in which vehicles using comma.ai devices hit slow or stopped vehicles in the same lane. Ars Technica and TechCrunch both report that two of those crashes killed three people. Ars Technica adds that eleven people were hurt. The review asks whether the aftermarket system detected the vehicle ahead.
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The defects office opens a five-crash review
Ars Technica reported that NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation opened a preliminary evaluation after five crashes. In those crashes, vehicles using comma.ai devices hit slow or stopped vehicles. Two of the crashes killed three people, and Ars Technica reported that eleven people were injured. The agency's question is whether the system detected a vehicle that was already in the lane. TechCrunch reported the same opening facts. Comma.ai, founded by George Hotz, faces a federal investigation after five reported crashes involving its aftermarket hands-off driver assistance. Two of those crashes killed three people. TechCrunch, citing the defects office, said the crashes involved devices that failed to detect or respond to slow or stopped vehicles in the same lane.[1], [2]
Both newsrooms describe a same-lane detection failure
The shared account is specific. Five crashes. Two of them fatal. Three deaths. The vehicles that were hit were slow or stopped, and they were in the same lane as the comma.ai-equipped car. Ars Technica and TechCrunch agree on that sequence. The injury count of eleven people is in the Ars Technica report. TechCrunch's account, in the passage read here, stops at the three deaths and the failed detection. Comma.ai sells an aftermarket device and open software that the company says can let a driver take hands off the wheel. Both reports describe the federal review as a preliminary evaluation, and neither calls it a recall notice. The office wants the status of the system in each crash and a look at the safeguards that are supposed to keep the car from striking a vehicle that is already in front of it.[1], [2]
What the evaluation is asking for
Ars Technica frames the probe as a check on detection of slow or stopped traffic, including the crashes that killed three people and injured eleven. That injury figure stays with Ars Technica. TechCrunch adds the company's origin and the hands-off product claim, and it repeats the defects office's description of a missed vehicle in the same lane. Neither report says the agency has reached a defect finding. The sourced development is the opening of the review, the five-crash set, the three deaths, and the stated concern about vehicles that were already stopped or moving slowly in the lane. A later finding would be a different story.[1], [2]
