Nearly 400 Crashes Tied to Driver-Assist Technologies Since Last Summer

WEDNESDAY, June 15, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Nearly 400 crashes have been tied to advanced driver-assistance technologies in the past year, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reported Wednesday.

Those accidents resulted in six deaths and five people being seriously injured, the agency said in the first large-scale safety report it has compiled on automated vehicles, the NHTSA said in a news release announcing the new data.

"New vehicle technologies have the potential to help prevent crashes, reduce crash severity, and save lives, and the department is interested in fostering technologies that are proven to do so; collecting this data is an important step in that effort," NHTSA Administrator Steven Cliff, Ph.D., said in the news release.

Of the 392 crashes reported, Teslas using the self-driving feature Autopilot were involved in 273 accidents. Other cars equipped with driver-assistance systems were also involved in incidents, including Honda vehicles in 90, Subarus in 10, and Ford Motor, General Motors, BMW, Volkswagen, Toyota, Hyundai, and Porsche vehicles each involved in five or fewer.

Cliff told reporters that conclusions cannot be drawn from the data collected so far because it does not take into account factors like the number of cars from each manufacturer that are on U.S. roads and equipped with these types of technologies, The New York Times reported. "The data may raise more questions than they answer," he said.

The NHTSA will continue to collect data on crashes involving these driver-assistance technologies and use it when developing any rules or requirements for their design and use, Cliff said.

The New York Times Article