Confirmed in a primary source 21 Sept 2026 Safety

The federal car safety regulator opened an investigation into an aftermarket box that drives your car, after three deaths.

On September 21 the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened preliminary evaluation PE26007 into comma.ai, covering the comma three, comma 3X and comma four devices and the openpilot software, an estimated 30,000 units. The agency's own summary says it identified five crashes in which vehicles fitted with comma devices struck stopped or slow-moving vehicles in the same lane, with two crashes killing three people and four injuring eleven.

Two caveats matter: at least one fatal crash involved FrogPilot, a third-party modification of openpilot rather than the official software, and the investigation opened on September 21 but only reached the public through coverage on September 23, so it is carded here at its true date and surfaced late.

Until now

Federal defect investigations into driving automation had one shape: a named carmaker, a model year list, and a system the manufacturer alone controls and can change over the air.

Now

Treat an open source driving system with modified forks in the field as something a federal regulator will open a file on, and watch whether the file ends up naming the fork or the original.

Every driving automation investigation this agency has run has had a company at the other end of it that could be ordered to fix something: Tesla, General Motors, Ford, each with a fleet it identifies by vehicle identification number and updates when told to. PE26007 does not have that shape. The thing under investigation is a 1,000 dollar box a consumer buys and installs, running software published openly for more than 325 car models, in an estimated 30,000 units the agency can only estimate because nobody registered them. The five crashes all share one failure described in the agency's own words, striking stopped or slow-moving vehicles in the same lane, which is the oldest failure mode in driver assistance and the one that killed three people here.

The fork is the part that makes this new. At least one of the fatal crashes, the February 2026 Louisiana crash in which a Toyota RAV4 struck a stopped first responder vehicle and killed two passengers in the back seat, involved FrogPilot, a modified build that comma.ai did not write and cannot recall. A regulator can order a manufacturer to fix its product. It has no mechanism at all to reach a third party who downloaded that product, changed it and gave it away, and no answer yet to whether the original author is responsible for what the copy does. That question has been theoretical in every open source licence argument for thirty years and it is now attached to three deaths and a docket number. Treat an open source driving system with modified forks in the field as something a federal regulator will open a file on, and watch whether the file ends up naming the fork or the original.

How it got here

Feb 2026
A Toyota RAV4 running FrogPilot, a fork of openpilot, strikes a stopped first responder vehicle in Louisiana, killing two rear-seat passengers.
Sep 4
NHTSA opens a file on Tesla's Cybercab hours after the first driverless rides. Carded in Edition 012.
Sep 21
ODI opens PE26007 into comma.ai: four products, 30,000 units, five crashes, three deaths, eleven injuries.
Sep 23
The investigation reaches the public through coverage. Comma.ai and George Hotz do not respond to requests for comment.
Who has to react
Comma.ai, a company with no press office facing a federal defect file; the maintainers of every openpilot fork, who now know a regulator is reading the commit history; the 30,000 people driving with one of these boxes fitted; Tesla, whose own driver assistance files use the same language about stopped vehicles in the same lane and whose lawyers will read this one closely; the insurers who have been quietly pricing aftermarket driver assistance without a category for it; the first responders whose stopped vehicles are the specific hazard in this failure mode; and every open source project whose licence says the author warrants nothing.

The evidence

ObservedMonday September 21, 2026. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Office of Defects Investigation opened preliminary evaluation PE26007 into comma.ai.

The whole observation, as recorded

Products and population named on the agency's own resume: comma three, comma 3X, comma four and the openpilot software, an estimated 30,000 units. The summary states that ODI identified five crashes in which vehicles equipped with comma devices struck stopped or slow-moving vehicles in the same travel lane, with the systems reportedly powered on during multiple incidents; two of the crashes resulted in three fatalities and four resulted in injuries to eleven people. The resume records that the devices are aftermarket systems sold directly to consumers for self-installation, advertised to enable hands free driving, with openpilot described on the company's own site as an open source advanced driver assistance system that works on 325+ car models. At least one of the fatal crashes involved FrogPilot, a third-party modified build of openpilot rather than the official software: in a February 2026 crash in Louisiana a Toyota RAV4 running the forked software struck a stopped first responder vehicle and killed two rear-seat passengers. Comma.ai did not respond to requests for comment and its founder George Hotz did not respond either. A preliminary evaluation is the first of the agency's investigative stages and carries no finding; it either closes, or escalates to an engineering analysis, which is the stage that can lead to a recall demand. The date opened on the agency's resume is September 21, which was inside Edition 029's window, and it was not carded there; it reached us through coverage dated September 23. Under the clock law it is carded at September 21 and recorded as surfacing late.

Established

NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation opened preliminary evaluation PE26007 into comma.ai on September 21, 2026.
The products named are comma three, comma 3X, comma four and openpilot, an estimated population of 30,000 units.
The agency identified five crashes in which comma-equipped vehicles struck stopped or slow-moving vehicles in the same lane; two killed three people and four injured eleven.
At least one fatal crash involved FrogPilot, a third-party modified build of openpilot rather than the official software.

Not established

That the systems are defective. A preliminary evaluation makes no finding, most close without one, and the agency's own summary says the systems were reportedly powered on rather than confirmed so.
That comma.ai is responsible for the fork. Nothing in the file assigns responsibility, and the question of whether an author answers for a modified copy is unresolved in law.
That 30,000 is accurate. The agency's own resume marks the population as an estimate, because nobody registers an aftermarket device.
That a recall is available. The recall machinery is built around manufacturers and vehicle identification numbers, and no one has established it reaches a self-installed box running community software.

Why it weighs this much

Signal strength

CostMedium

CommitmentMedium

ReversibilityMedium

PersistenceYears

Cost is medium: opening a preliminary evaluation costs the agency staff time and a public commitment to look, which is real but small, and it costs comma.ai a legal problem it did not have on Sunday. Commitment is medium because a preliminary evaluation binds the agency to nothing; most of them close with no action. Reversibility is medium for the same reason, since closing a file is routine and unremarkable. Persistence is years, and that is what carries this card: the jurisdictional question the file raises, whether a regulator can reach the author of software somebody else modified, does not close when the file closes, and the answer will be cited long after the specific crashes are forgotten.

What to watch

strengthens NHTSA escalates PE26007 to an engineering analysis, issues an information request naming a third-party fork, or demands a recall, by June 30, 2027.
weakens NHTSA closes PE26007 with no action and no finding by June 30, 2027.

The words

Preliminary evaluation: The first stage of a federal defect investigation. It gathers information and makes no finding. It either closes or escalates to an engineering analysis, which is the stage that can lead to a recall.
Aftermarket: Equipment sold to the car owner rather than fitted by the manufacturer. It sits outside the recall and compliance machinery built around carmakers, which is the awkward part of this file.
Fork: A copy of open source software that someone else has modified and distributes under their own name. FrogPilot is a fork of openpilot, and the original author does not control what it does.
Advanced driver assistance system: Software that steers, brakes or accelerates while a person is still responsible for the car. It is a lower category than self-driving, and hands free is a claim about attention rather than about liability.

Your call

Which explanation do you believe?

A call is final. Other people's calls show after yours.