Everybody struggling to say the right things
Language matters when it comes to consumer safety, writes Lorraine Sommerfeld.
I won’t use the word “accident” because collisions and crashes are no such beast. “No fault” insurance is a misnomer because there is always fault. And now we’re facing a new menace in the automotive world.
A car that sports autonomous features is not an autonomous car. The concepts can’t be used interchangeably, and to do so will cloud consumer knowledge and produce dangerous consequences.
Who’s to blame? Carmakers, advertising agencies, journalists and media. Everybody.
Carmakers for wanting you to believe you’re getting more than you are, advertising that needs to lead with the shiniest bait, and media that is too often either fooled by both or too lazy to call them out.
How easy is it to stumble? J.D. Power released a study recently exploring what impact drivers expect current automated safety features to have on their insurance rates. It’s a good question; if I splash out a lot of money for features that should help avert crashes altogether, I should see a break on my insurance rates. Seventy per cent of respondents agree, and want to see insurance companies respond accordingly. Forty per cent said they were willing to switch providers to chase discounts, which of course is the takeaway for a study like this.
The last highlighted section of the study stopped me.
“Personal Liability — Who’s at Fault in an Automated Vehicle Crash: Consumers are holding themselves to a high standard. Nearly 40 per cent say that drivers have some responsibility when an accident does occur in an automated vehicle, compared to just 22 per cent who say the OEMs or the manufactures of the autonomous sensor technology are to blame.”
I called study researcher Tom Super and asked him exactly how they worded that last question.
He told me J.D. Power has an internal standard regarding the wording of partially automated and highly automated features.
I told him that last question was asking drivers about fault in an automated vehicle — which is neither of those things — in a survey about automated features. The question before that one asked respondents why they’d bought an automated car. More erosion.
“You’re right,” he said.
We had a good conversation, and if he thought I was being pedantic, he didn’t show it. He admitted those who hold sway in the industry — like J.D. Power — have to be transparent and accurate in their wordings.
There is a strict guideline by SAE International (Society of Automotive Engineers) that defines the six levels of on-road motor vehicle automated driving systems.
Level 0 No Automation: The full-time performance by the human driver of all aspects of the dynamic driving task, even when enhanced by warning or intervention systems.
Level 1 Driver Assistance: The driving mode-specific execution by a driver assistance system of either steering or acceleration/deceleration with the expectation that the human driver perform all remaining aspects of the dynamic driving task.
Level 2 Partial Automation: The driving mode-specific execution by one or more driver assistance systems of both steering and acceleration/deceleration with the expectation that the human driver perform all remaining aspects of the dynamic driving task.
Level 3 Conditional Automation: The driving mode-specific performance by an automated driving system of all aspects of the dynamic driving task with the expectation that the human driver will respond appropriately to a request to intervene.
Level 4 High Automation: The driving mode-specific performance by an automated driving system of all aspects of the dynamic driving task, even if a human driver does not respond appropriately to a request to intervene.
Level 5 Full Automation: The full-time performance by an automated driving system of all aspects of the dynamic driving task.
Right now, most of us drive cars that are in the Level 1 to 2 range. Some features are reaching up to Level 3, but we are nowhere close to walking into a showroom and buying a Level 5 car. If fully 40 per cent of people think they have liability in a car that might not even have a steering wheel, but 22 per cent are comfortable placing all the blame on the technology, that tells me respondents were not interpreting that question the same way.