Self-Driving Cars Caused Hundreds of Crashes Over 10 Months, US Agency Shows

By Yehudit Garmaise

Nearly 400 cars that used futuristic driver-assistance technologies crashed throughout 10 months in the United States, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reported today in the first-ever release of comprehensive data about self-driving cars.

From July 1, 2021 to May 15, 2022, the NHTSA found that six people died and five were seriously injured in 392 crashes over the 10-month period, and that 273 of the crashes were Teslas operating with Autopilot, which activates the cars’ Full Self-Driving mode, the New York Times reported.

Approximately 830,000 Tesla cars in the United States are equipped with Autopilot or the company’s other driver-assistance technologies, which is likely the reason that Tesla vehicles accounted for nearly 70% of the reported crashes.

While Tesla’s self-driving cars employ the most automation of any vehicle, many other car manufacturers in recent years have offered new features that allow drivers to sometimes take their hands off their steering wheels and even help drivers parallel park.

Other automated features are “lane-keeping,” which helps drivers stay in their lanes, and adaptive cruise control, which maintains cars’ speeds and initiates brakes automatically when traffic ahead slows.

The federal agency said that Honda vehicles were involved in 90 crashes, and Subarus in 10.

Ford, General Motors, BMW, Volkswagen, Toyota, Hyundai, and Porsche each reported five or fewer crashes in the 10-month period of the federal agency’s study that did not include the total number of each make of car that is sold.

“[Self-driving] technologies hold great promise to improve safety, but we need to understand how these vehicles are performing in real-world situations,” said Steven Cliff, the administrator of the NHTSA, who added that the NHTSA will continue to collect data on crashes that involve automated technologies to guide the agency in making rules and requirements on automated cars’ designs and uses.

“[Our studies] will help our investigators quickly identify potential defect trends that emerge,” Dr. Cliff said.