The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened a preliminary evaluation into aftermarket driver-assistance devices from Comma, the company founded by hacker George Hotz, and its openpilot software, after five reported crashes in which cars using the system struck stopped, slow-moving or merging vehicles.
According to the agency's Office of Defects Investigation, the probe — PE26007, opened on 21 September — covers Comma Three, Comma 3X and Comma Four hardware as well as openpilot, spanning roughly 30,000 devices. Preliminary data reviewed by the ODI 'suggests that the comma system may not have adequately detected or responded to the in-lane vehicles', the agency said. Two of the crashes were fatal, killing three people; eleven others were injured. Reporting on the probe notes that at least some of the cases involved 'forked', community-modified versions of Comma's code.
The case puts a spotlight on a fast-growing category of add-on hardware that can boost or augment a car's factory driver-assistance features. Such devices sit outside a manufacturer's own safety validation, and in an open-source project like openpilot they can be altered by anyone. Comma positions its technology as driver assistance, not autonomy, and tells drivers to keep their hands on the wheel and their eyes on the road. How responsibility is apportioned — between the company, the community forks and the drivers themselves — is likely to be central to the inquiry, and will be watched closely by an industry now selling 'hands-off' systems to consumers.
