Partially Automated Mustang Driver Charged With DUI Manslaughter

A woman was drunk and using a partially automated driving system when she caused a freeway crash in Philadelphia in March that killed two people, authorities said as they announced manslaughter charges against the driver.

State and federal investigators say the woman’s Ford Mustang Mach-E SUV hit the stationary vehicle of a man who had stopped on the left shoulder of I-95 to help a driver whose car had broken down in front of him. The collision in March, which happened around 3am, killed both men.

The crash was at least the second this year in which a Mach-E struck a stationary vehicle after dark, which the National Transportation Safety Board is investigating. In a February crash along Interstate 10 in San Antonio, Texas, investigators believe a Mach-E hit a Honda CR-V that was stopped in the middle lane without its lights on. The driver of the CR-V was killed.

In a statement Tuesday, Pennsylvania State Police said drivers using advanced technology should be prepared to take back control at any time.

“No partially automated vehicle technology should ever be left alone to perform the driving tasks that are necessary to safely navigate the roads of the Commonwealth,” the agency said.

Ford’s Blue Cruise system allows drivers to take their hands off the wheel while it handles steering, braking and acceleration on highways. The company says the system isn’t fully autonomous and monitors drivers to make sure they’re paying attention to the road.

Philadelphia investigators believe Mustang driver Dimple Patel was driving approximately 71 mph (114 km/h), using both Blue Cruise and Adaptive Cruise Control, when the crash occurred. A fourth vehicle was also hit.

Patel, 23, a medical student from Philadelphia, faces multiple charges, including vehicular homicide while driving under the influence and involuntary manslaughter. She turned herself in to police Tuesday on charges filed last week, state police said.

Driving system failure?

Defense attorney Zak Goldstein said he has not yet seen the criminal complaint or any accident report and called the deaths a tragedy. However, he noted that, broadly speaking, Pennsylvania DUI homicide law requires “that the DUI caused the homicide.”

“If it’s actually a self-driving or driving system failure, it might not be DUI homicide, even if the driver is intoxicated,” he said, adding that he hasn’t seen any case law in this matter in Pennsylvania. .

Ford said it is working with state police, the NTSB and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in reviewing the crash, which killed Aktilek Baktybekov, who had broken down, and Tolobek Esenbekov, who likely pulled over on the shoulder to help him.

When it opened a probe into the crashes in Philadelphia and San Antonio involving Blue Cruise, NHTSA said both occurred on freeways in lighted conditions at night and that Blue Cruise was in use just before the collisions.

The agency said it is looking into how Blue Cruise performs driving tasks, as well as its camera-based driver monitoring system.

Both the NHTSA and the NTSB have investigated several previous accidents involving partially automated driving systems.

In April, NHTSA began investigating whether Tesla’s solution to a December recall involving more than 2 million vehicles equipped with the company’s partially automated Autopilot system fixed the problem. The recall was made because the driver monitoring system was inadequate and posed a safety risk.

NHTSA said that from January 2018 to August 2023, it found 956 crashes involving Autopilot and Tesla’s “Full Self Driving” systems, resulting in 29 deaths.

AP Auto Writer Tom Krisher in Detroit contributed to this report.

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