Many new vehicles come equipped with advanced safety features that can steer, accelerate and brake with limited driver input. Robotaxis are also making inroads.
But according to the Arlington, Virginia-based Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, while the technology is helping prevent crashes, there are still questions about how it affects driver behavior and how safe it is compared to human drivers.
Institute president David Harkey said one of the most effective safety features is automatic emergency braking, which can detect slowing traffic or hazards ahead and automatically slow a vehicle to avoid a crash or reduce its severity.
Harkey said newer driver-assistance systems are also showing promise.
“The other area, when we start talking about partial driving automation systems, where the vehicle may indeed be able to do lane tracking as well as acceleration and braking at the same time, those systems can also have a positive safety benefit,” Harkey said.
Still, Harkey said researchers are concerned some drivers may become too reliant on the technology.
“We do worry whether these systems will enable risky behaviors and more distraction,” Harkey said.
As vehicles become more automated, Harkey said regulators and researchers are working to gather more information about how cars perform in the real-world. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration requires companies operating autonomous vehicles and robotaxi services to report certain crash data, but Harkey said there is still not enough information to draw broad conclusions about their safety.
Part of the challenge is that autonomous vehicles have logged only a fraction of the miles driven by human motorists. Harkey said that makes it difficult to evaluate how the technology compares with people behind the wheel.
“We’re going to need a lot more data over a more extended period of time to really assess whether those systems are safe or not safe, and how they compare to human drivers,” Harkey said.
While robotaxi services continue expanding in some U.S. cities and testing continues in the Washington area, Harkey said public trust will depend on proving the technology is as safe as, or safer than, human drivers. He said gathering enough data to make that determination could take several more years.
For now, Harkey said advanced vehicle technology should be viewed as a tool that can help improve safety, not a replacement for a driver paying attention.
