Ford Super Duty Driver Lies Down in Back Seat While Going 84 MPH on Cruise Control
The F-450 doesn’t even have BlueCruise, but this troll doesn’t seem to care.
Among the most dangerous new kinds of bad drivers are those that think self-driving cars exist. They've been mostly confined to Teslas so far, but it seems the delusion is contagious. Take this guy in a new Ford Super Duty, who was filmed chilling in the back seat as the truck rolls down the highway at 80-something mph with nobody in the driver's seat, endangering everyone in the vicinity.
The video in question was originally uploaded by Instagram user @__c.crawford__. The man is depicted lying down in the back seat of a 2023 or newer Ford F-450 Platinum crew cab, with nobody at the wheel or controlling the pedals. The video's caption reads "F450 driving itself," which it definitely isn't designed or advertised to do.
Ford offers multiple levels of driving automation, and hands-free BlueCruise is the company's premier automation tech. BlueCruise isn't self-driving though, as Ford emphasizes the driver must keep their eyes on the road. Ford uses a driver monitoring system to ensure this, and it'll deactivate if the vehicle suspects the driver is inattentive. (Even that hasn't been enough to prevent two fatal crashes involving BlueCruise though, which has the system under federal investigation.)
But the F-450 doesn't even have BlueCruise. The most advanced assist Ford offers on the Super Duty is a combination of adaptive cruise control and lane-keeping, which barely even register on the automation scale. They're designed to be used by a driver who's in control with their hands on the wheel, not some moron who thinks they can climb in the back seat. Ford tries to enforce this with pressure sensors on the steering wheel, but Tesla drivers have found a variety of ways to defeat them, and it seems this guy here has, too.
Some Tesla drivers have filmed themselves doing this very thing as "pranks," and it's feasible this guy is doing the same. Whether or not he's trolling is beside the point, because while overconfident tech bros in Teslas are bad enough, 8,000-pound F-450 crew cabs are even more dangerous due to the sheer weight involved. And judging from the comments, he's not the only person who believes these rigs can drive themselves. There's a reason Tesla's under investigation for misleading consumers, but until anything good comes from that case, it'd be real nice for the rest of us on the road if people cut it out.
[Editor's note: This piece has been updated to provide more context for the video.]
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