The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration today said it has started an investigation into two fatal crashes involving Tesla Inc. cars.

One of the crashes happened recently in California. A 2018 Tesla Model 3 hit a pedestrian and killed her, and investigators believe that the reason for the crash could have been the car’s advanced driver assistance system.

Investigators say the victim was hit after the driver had run a red light. The car then hit a bump in the road and became airborne, according to reports, which also state that the driver of the car may have been drunk at the time. This is now the 45^th instance in which NHTSA’s Special Crash Investigation team is looking at the possible dangers of advanced driver assistance systems.

The other crash just happened on July 6. A driver and a passenger in a Tesla car were both killed when their car drove into the back of a tractor-trailer in Florida. The Florida Highway Patrol said the reason the 2015 car did such a thing is “unknown.” NHTSA will attempt to find out if it happened when the driver had the autopilot system turned on.

These are just two incidences involving such systems in many ranges of cars that the government is looking into. Although many companies are under the spotlight, according to NHTSA more crashes have occurred in Tesla cars than in other types of cars. It’s suspected that in many instances the fault was the autopilot system’s, not the driver’s per se.

“Most incidents took place after dark and the crash scenes encountered included scene control measures such as first responder vehicle lights, flares, an illuminated arrow board, and road cones,” NHTSA said.

Last year, the California Department of Motor Vehicles began an investigation into Tesla over the language it has used in relation to self-driving capabilities. The agency said words such as “Autopilot” and “full self-driving” might mislead the consumer given that the cars are not yet capable of driving all the time without a human at the wheel. By using such terms, said the investigators, drivers might feel compelled to take their hands off the wheel and that’s one reason why crashes are happening.

Photo: Bran Van Oost/Flickr