So This Pretty Much Guarantees no BlueCruise Updates

[thekat03]

I think that the NHTSA had to investigate these cases to be thorough and fair. I feel Ford does a better job monitoring and not overselling Bluecruise compared to Tesla and Autopilot/FSD, but it still will be interesting what NHTSA concludes after their investigation.

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[Rory]

The Ford leadership team, for example, is unlikely to pointlessly antagonize regulators (or the press) via social media.

Unlike he who shall not be named.

 

[Rory]

One of them? The driver was drunk and car stopped on the highwayCase closed.

The other? The car that got hit was completely stopped at 3am on the highway with no lights on.

No driver assistance program is designed to avoid a vehicle completely stopped while at highway speeds (70 mph plus). That’s the drivers job to emergency stop and swerve if possible.

Finding "fault" is not useful for preventing future accidents. The interesting part is whether NHTSA can identify useful recommendations for dealing with stopped vehicles.

 

[Mach1E]

Finding "fault" is not useful for preventing future accidents. The interesting part is whether NHTSA can identify useful recommendations for dealing with stopped vehicles.

Pay attention while driving. Even when using driving aids!!

And Ford is actually quite good at making sure the driver is paying attention.

Cant do anything about a drunk driver or a car in the middle of the road with the lights off though.

 

[metalpro2021]

I expect the improvement will be a sticker: "Self driving is less confident than it appears."

 

[Billyk24]

Who has 1.4 Blue Cruise?

 

[DustyShades]

If they were adding BlueCruise to cars that didn’t have it already or if the newer version of BlueCruise was still in development; sure, I’d expect this to put things on hold.

in this case, the software is already developed and the entire fleet of cars eligible for the update already has some version of BlueCruise. So updating to the new version will not make this kind of event any more likely. If anything the update should allow existing vehicles to function better while in use and prevent some additional incidents

 

[todkapuz]

I am not overly worried. Ford never has marketed the system as "in less than a year you can go to sleep while the car takes you from LA to NY... only the regulators are holding it back" or anything crazy like that, or attempted to hide or overstate what the system can do. Ford always has seemed very open to work with regulators.

Honestly I personally love that the highest level of assistance it provides IS limited to situations that generally traffic is understandable and doesn't do extremely weird things most of the time (unlike a city street). But weird things DO happen from time to time. I've had many near calls over the last 25 years+ with people doing weird things (often "omg it was exit only" and "omg thats my exit" moves... which with just a bit of attention of the behavior of the other car, often you get some clues may happen, and then just good defensive driving things... . don't sit in someone's blind spot or right next to them for any length of time). I've found I like the added ability for me to focus on such behaviors and less about the immediate "am I correctly in my lane and at the right speed" element. Lets me look out further forward and behind most often, which to me is the greatest asset any ADAS can do.

 

[Pearce]

I remember when Volvo was all over the news about "sudden acceleration" problems way back when. It turned out to be "driver-pedal misapplication". Never heard about that much. So much drama!

 

[Mike G]

Who has 1.4 Blue Cruise?

An estimated 50 cars in the EA group (MY '21 from what I gather) received an update last Dec/Jan and aren't allowed to comment on it yet.

I am not one of them in case you're wondering. But I do have 1.2 with all available updates that would lead to a similar if not identical performance experience and I find it confidence inspiring. Several of these updates have not gone out as OTAs but are available in FDRS.

 

[Chuck]

Not sure this has any effect on future software releases. It's pretty well documented in the manual that Blue Cruise cannot detect stopped vehicles, it's now how the sensors work. You'll see that a lot of these cases are user error, sad, but it usually ends up being the case, someone was careless with the system.

Yet every time I back out of my daughter's steep driveway the car thinks that the road is a wall and applies the brakes in an immediate stop.

 

[Chuck]

An estimated 50 cars in the EA group (MY '21 from what I gather) received an update last Dec/Jan and aren't allowed to comment on it yet.

I am not one of them in case you're wondering. But I do have 1.2 with all available updates that would lead to a similar if not identical performance experience and I find it confidence inspiring. Several of these updates have not gone out as OTAs but are available in FDRS.

How do you know it was 50?

 

[Blue highway]

It’s a bit crazy that a drivers assistance system requires constant driver monitoring but a driver with zero electronic assistance needs no monitoring.

What I mean to ask is that if a driver plowed their car into a stopped CR-V in the middle of the freeway at night and they had zero ADAS, would this even be a story?

There are two issues:
1- people have no idea how these systems work but have firm opinions of what they they should be able to do but can't for important engineering reasons.
2- people want to blame someone else for their mistakes.

 

[Blue highway]

Yet every time I back out of my daughter's steep driveway the car thinks that the road is a wall and applies the brakes in an immediate stop.

perfect example of how people don't understand how these systems work...

 

[vsguru]

Loss of life is never good. Having said that, there are MANY reasons, already mentioned, that are the primary cause of fatal accidents, for both BC (and BC type systems) as well as for vehicles with no driving assist at all including: driver carelessness, driver distractions, driver tiredness, driver slow reaction times... the list goes on and on. See the commonalities? I use BC every time I can and feel safer when using it than without. If anything, I pay more attention when using BC than when I don't and I'm sure there are others that do as well. Drivers are the extremely likely cause of most accidents by far, not driver assist software.

I sincerely doubt this NTHS investigation will have ANY effect on the delivery of future BC updates.

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