You mount it on the windscreen, connect it to the car, and it starts keeping the lane, accelerating and braking on its own. That's how Comma.ai, the startup founded by hacker George Hotz, sells its idea of hands-free driving. The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is now investigating it after five reported crashes, two of which killed three people.

The pattern in the reported crashes is the same. According to NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation, the devices failed to recognise or respond to vehicles moving slowly or standing still in the same lane. In four of the crashes up to 11 people were injured, some seriously.

One fatal crash most likely happened in February 2026 in Louisiana. A 2022 Toyota RAV4 running FrogPilot - an unofficial, modified version of the openpilot software - slammed into an empty police car with its emergency lights on, left in the left lane while officers dealt with another crash. Two rear-seat passengers were killed. The second fatal crash has not yet been identified.

Here's the catch in the whole story. Comma's software is open source, so anyone can change it - and at least one of the fatal crashes may have involved exactly such a modified version. The device is the company's, the idea is the company's, and the slogan on its website says the goal is to make driving "chill". Who's responsible when someone else's reworked software is running on one firm's device?

Comma claims openpilot "can automatically steer, accelerate and brake for other vehicles in its lane" and compares it to Tesla's Autopilot and GM's Super Cruise. At the same time, the same website warns that the driver "must always be capable of immediately taking over", that performance can be degraded by "stationary vehicles in the same lane", and that in hard braking the system is limited in how much it can slow down. That is precisely the scenario in the reported crashes.

Hotz stepped back from running the company day to day in 2022, and neither he nor the company immediately responded to requests for comment. The problem isn't only theirs: driver-assistance systems have struggled with stationary vehicles for years, and Tesla and Ford have already been through similar investigations. The difference is that Comma doesn't sell a car - it sells an add-on for a wide range of modern cars.

Devices like this are sold online, and the software is public. Who in the Balkans would check what's driving the car next to you on the motorway - and who would answer for it if it failed?