Hands-Free Driving Systems Grow Rapidly Despite Crashes

Hands-free driving is expanding fast as Ford reports 264 million BlueCruise miles in 2025, even while regulators investigate crashes and system limits.

Hands-free driving systems that only a few years ago felt like experimental technology are quickly becoming a familiar feature for new-car buyers. And that shift is happening even as federal investigations continue and high-profile crashes keep putting the technology under a spotlight.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the use of hands-free driver assistance is rising despite persistent safety concerns. Systems such as Tesla’s Autopilot, GM’s Super Cruise, and Ford’s BlueCruise can allow a vehicle to maintain speed and steering on certain highways, reducing workload for the driver — but not removing responsibility.

Ford has offered one of the clearest examples of how fast adoption is accelerating. The company said that in 2025, vehicles in the United States logged 264 million miles using BlueCruise, marking an 88% increase over 2024. Launched in 2021, the system is now available across nine Ford and Lincoln models. The numbers suggest the technology is no longer a novelty for many drivers, but something they are increasingly relying on.

At the same time, questions remain about whether drivers fully understand what these systems can and cannot do. The Wall Street Journal highlighted a crash near Toledo, Ohio, in May of last year, when a Ford F-150 struck a guardrail and rolled over. A passenger said the system failed to disengage even after the driver attempted to brake. Ford disputes that account, saying its data indicates BlueCruise had disengaged and was not active for at least 20 seconds before the crash. The investigation is still ongoing.

Regulators continue to stress a consistent message. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has not commented on the Toledo incident while the review remains open, but the agency has reiterated that today’s hands-free technologies are still driver assistance systems — not replacements for attentive human control. NHTSA administrator Jonathan Morrison has emphasized that drivers remain responsible for operating the vehicle.

That caution has been reinforced by previous federal scrutiny. In 2024, NHTSA opened an investigation into BlueCruise following two fatal crashes in which Ford Mustang Mach-E vehicles collided with stationary cars on highways at night. Investigators found that in both cases the drivers failed to take evasive action, underscoring how dangerous it can be when drivers overestimate what the technology is capable of handling.

Human behavior has long been part of the challenge. The Wall Street Journal reported that internal documents from 2018 and 2019 identified “common areas of confusion” during testing of similar systems, including GM’s Super Cruise. Those same tests suggested that drivers adapted quickly over time, and Ford says it made multiple changes before BlueCruise reached customers in 2021.

Despite the criticism, the direction of the market appears clear. Hands-free driver assistance is becoming more widespread, not less. General Motors has said its Super Cruise mapped network is expected to expand to roughly 750,000 miles of roads in the U.S. and Canada by the end of 2025, reflecting how aggressively automakers are investing in the technology.

For now, the central reality remains unchanged: these systems sit in a gray area between helpful assistance and what many drivers mistakenly interpret as true self-driving. As investigations continue and manufacturers refine their software, hands-free driving is likely to become an even more common part of everyday highway travel. But fully autonomous driving without human supervision still appears to be a distant goal.