And the driver a technology in many cases does not work 100% of the time,
or what's most dangerous is that people assume that these systems are better than they actually are.
The figure that you hear most often is 94% of crashes are caused by some form of human error.
You mean I can't update my Instagram story while driving.
They've also loaded modern vehicles with more and more technology.
Even Advanced Driver AIDS like blind spot monitoring rear cross traffic alert and adaptive cruise control can prevent a wreck from happening in the first place, which is the best kind of safety feature, but they have limitations and they are not 100% perfect.
A recent test found that on average there's some kind of issue with a an active driving assistance system about once every eight miles in our in our testing, you know we shared pretty clearly that the vehicles do not consistently respond to a vehicle that's stranded in the roadway.
So if you have just some, engaged and you're proceeding down the road not all of them can perceive and respond to something like a stranded vehicle.
And as tripple A we respond to some 30 million stranded vehicles every year.
So we're pretty concerned about that kind of scenario.
I think we found 66% of the time.
They actually hit the car that was.
First halfway on the roadway.
Automatic emergency braking is a tremendously valuable safety feature though It's horrifying to hear that it fails two thirds of the time when confronted with a disabled vehicle partially blocking the lane.
But you know something I'm not that surprised.
As a reviews editor, I'm in and out of new vehicles all the time, and I see firsthand how driver aids don't always work as advertised whether it's Lane Keeping Assist that ignores lines or adaptive cruise control that somehow doesn't see the gravel truck right in front of you or even overly sensitive forward collision warning that sounds the alarm even though you are nowhere near hitting Another vehicle, the problems that the new technology has are associated with some of the variables out there are reflective street sign, for instance, a shiny barrier at the side of the road.
At night in the rain and the snow.
The point here is that it takes all of our senses and if you rely just on one to get the job done like a camera, it is going to let you down.
Drivers always need to pay attention no matter how many fancy features their vehicle has.
So don't rely on lane centering so you can send out a quick email or expect adaptive cruise control to do all the work.
While you look at your calendar to try to cram in a Tuesday afternoon Pilates session, even though they're a big help advanced driver aids can enable all kinds of bad behavior by creating a false sense of safety.
Security.
I don't want to ever say you shouldn't have the drive ready technology, Mike.
My caution is that without the education people lean on it too much.
I think when you give someone a driver aid such as the lane keep assist, or auto Brake Assist, you're basically trying to take care of a driver who generally is more distracted, enabling people to become more distracted.
The studies that have been done to try to trace the cause of accidents or crashes, you know, generally find that the thing that precipitated the crash was an error by the driver.
A big portion of the driver error problem is distraction.
How many times have you seen someone putting on makeup or yakking away with their phone plastered to the side of their face while driving?
It's like.
Do you have a brand new E Class I'm pretty sure Bluetooth comm standard there you should probably figure out how to use it.
distraction and less than reliable driver aids spelled trouble for autonomous cars which every year people seem to think becoming out in the next six months and spoiler alert, they're not For more information on this subject, make sure you check out a video that Brian Cooley recently did, where he covers the six levels of autonomous vehicles.
Yeah, that Brian Cooley.
The fact is the system still needs an engaged driver behind the wheel until we get to the point where the vehicle is has all of the failsafe in place and can drive itself So it becomes incumbent on the system to ensure that the driver is actually doing that job and as the systems get better, the harder it's going to be.
Make sure that the driver stays engaged.
When it comes to self driving vehicles, a self driving vehicle does not mean an autonomous vehicle.
Just because your car can go 10 miles down the road and you don't have to touch the steering wheel does not mean you should go to sleep does not mean you should be watching a movie.
It means you need to pay attention for when that technology loses sight of the of the of the wind.
Line doesn't see people stuffing in front of it.
And that's one of the reasons that we believe that driver monitoring systems are a key to successfully implementing higher levels of automation.
The good news is advanced driver assistance features work, and they can save lives as long as you the motorist
Are paying attention.
Another bit of good news.
Of course, many of these features have become democratized.
In recent years,>> we used to see that these technologies were only available in you know, $100,000 luxury sedans, and now we're seeing them available in cars that the everyday person can buy.
But it's not all circuits in software that help keep you safe.
You may not think much of them, but headlights are critical to preventing crashes too.
There's plenty of room for improvement here.>> Whenever we're talking about a situation where there is no overhead lighting you are on a roadway with no other lights available.
The headlights are allowed on the road in the US.
Those headlights are not adequate to light the roadway.
Or to see the road in front of you.
Advanced technology including the humble headlight can be a real lifesaver.
This is not debatable, but much of this stuff can also cause issues if users are not paying attention.
So make sure you keep your eyes on the wheel and your hands on the road while driving.
And make sure you leave those zoom meetings and emails for later.
Thank you so much for watching but before you head out give this other feature a watch a rube.
It's all about crash tests and who doesn't love watching cars get smashed up.
Seriously, if nothing else, it's great eye candy.
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