Driving aids degenerate drivers’ skills
Assists aimed at improving safety are showing an unintended consequence
If your car can hit the brakes in an emergency and check your blind spots, will that make you a worse driver? Increasingly, automakers are worrying it may.
Driver assist technology that keeps cars in their lanes, maintains a safe distance from other vehicles, warns of unseen traffic and slams the brakes to avoid rear-end crashes are rapidly spreading from luxury cars to everyday Hondas and Nissans. But these automated aids aimed at improving safety are having an unintended consequence: They’re degrading driving skills
“There are lots of concerns about people checking out and we are trying to monitor that now,” said Adrian Lund, president of the U.S.based Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). “Everything we do that makes the driving task a little easier means that people are going to pay a little bit less attention when they’re driving.”
For carmakers trying to address deteriorating driver skills, the stakes are immense. U.S. roadway deaths jumped 14 per cent over the last two years, with more than 40,000 people dying in crashes in 2016. While speeding and more congested roadways bear some of the blame, distraction is another culprit. Data released by the federal government show manipulation of hand-held devices while driving has been on the rise.
The semi-autonomous features that are the building blocks of tomorrow’s driverless cars were designed to compensate for inattentiveness behind the wheel. Instead, they may be enabling drivers to place too much faith in the new technology.
The auto industry is “terrified” about the unwanted side effects of their popular new features, and companies are scrambling to find ways to keep drivers engaged rather than glued to their smartphones, said Mark Wakefield, managing director and head of the automotive practice at consultant AlixPartners.
General Motors is installing eye-tracking technology on the Super Cruise feature coming to Cadillac models later this year, which allows drivers to take their hands off the wheel but requires watching the road. Nissan’s ProPilot Assist keeps the car centered and brings it to a stop in its lane if the driver goes more than 30 seconds without grabbing the wheel. Last year, Tesla implemented limits on drivers’ ability to go hands-free while using the company’s Autopilot system.
Consumers recognize the perils of relinquishing control, even if they don’t always heed their own advice. Fifty-seven per cent said driver-assist technologies will eventually erode driving skills in an informal survey of 847 visitors to researcher Kelley Blue Book’s car-shopping website.
“Without question, technology is making drivers lazier and less attentive,” said Mike Harley, group managing editor at Kelley Blue Book. “Most of today’s digital ‘driver assistance’ features are designed to overlay basic driving skills, which relaxes the driver’s sense of responsibility.”
Another risk, Lund warns, is that drivers become so accustomed to the aids that they forget when getting into older vehicles or rental cars that aren’t equipped with the technology.
Even if a driver hops into an unfamiliar car that is equipped with a system, performance varies widely by brand. Some adaptive cruise controls can bring a car to a full stop during low-speed driving, but not at highway speeds. “So a driver may become accustomed to it working in town, but not realize that above speeds of 100 kilometres per hour, it’s not going to bring the vehicle to a stop. And that could end badly.”