Pennsylvania woman charged with drunk driving manslaughter for driving partially automated vehicle

By Maryclaire Dale, The Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA — A woman was intoxicated and using a partially autonomous driving system when she caused a Philadelphia freeway crash in March that killed two people. Authorities said the driver has been charged with manslaughter.

State and federal investigators say the woman’s Ford Mustang Mach-E SUV struck the man’s stationary vehicle as he pulled over on the left shoulder of I-95 to help a driver whose car had broken down in front of him. Both men died in the March crash, which happened around 3 a.m.

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

In a statement Tuesday, Pennsylvania State Police said drivers using advanced technologies should be prepared to take control of their vehicle at any time.

“No partially automated vehicle technology should ever be left alone to perform driving tasks that are necessary for safe operation on Community roads,” the agency said.

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

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

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

Defense attorney Zak Goldstein said he had not yet seen the indictment or any reports of the crash and called the deaths a tragedy. But he noted that generally speaking, Pennsylvania’s drunken driving homicide law requires that “driving under the influence of alcohol caused the homicide.”

“If it is, in fact, a failure of the autonomous driving system, it may not be drunk driving homicide even if the driver is intoxicated,” he said, adding that he had not seen any case law on the issue in Pennsylvania.

Ford said it is cooperating with state police, the NTSB and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in investigating the circumstances of the crash that killed Aktilek Baktybekov, who crashed, and Tolobek Esenbekov, who is believed to have pulled over to the side of the road to help him.

When NHTSA opened an investigation into the Philadelphia and San Antonio crashes involving Blue Cruise, it found that both incidents occurred on freeways under night-light conditions and that Blue Cruise was in use just before the crash.

The agency said it is investigating how Blue Cruise carries out driving tasks as well as its camera-based driver monitoring system.

Both NHTSA and NTSB have investigated numerous crashes involving partially automated driving systems.

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

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

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