Hyundai Sued Over Driver Monitoring System That Flags Alert Drivers as Distracted

Hyundai is being hauled into court over a safety feature that drivers say keeps crying wolf. A 70-page class-action complaint filed September 16 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California claims the automaker's Direct Driver Monitoring System flags fully attentive drivers as distracted, according to ClassAction.org.

The plaintiffs say the glitch is more than an annoying chime. In affected vehicles, they allege the system can kill cruise control mid-drive and even trigger unexpected automatic braking. The vehicles named in the suit are the 2024-2026 Santa Fe, 2025-2026 Ioniq 5, 2025-2026 Tucson, 2025-2026 Santa Cruz and the 2026 Palisade.

Hyundai's setup pairs its DDMS with a Forward Attention Warning system that watches the driver's eyes, face and head position through a camera. If it decides you're not looking at the road while cruise control is on, it can disengage cruise control and bring the car to an emergency stop. The stakes are real: NHTSA counted 315,167 people injured by distracted driving in 2024 alone.

Here's the twist the lawsuit leans on. Hyundai allegedly knew about the flaw nearly two years ago, when it issued technical service bulletin 25-GI-001H in January 2025. The plaintiffs claim the company's suggested fix was telling drivers to "wear different sunglasses or glasses, adjust their seats, and look at the road."

The complaint also points at Hyundai's own owner's manuals, which admit the camera can get confused by sunglasses, prescription glasses, heavy makeup, hats, bright sunlight, laughing, squinting, turning your head, being too tall or too short, a bumpy road, or even where your hands sit on the wheel.

The suit seeks damages and other relief for owners. None of the allegations have been proven in court yet.