Research Offers Little Evidence That Partial Automation Prevents Crashes

These days, it sometimes feels like drivers of newer cars rely so much on the gizmos trying to see for them that they can't even remember what those shiny reflective things are for. Turns out those are mirrors!

It would be nice if we could just pump the brakes on automated driving to reassess whether there are any actual benefits. If the findings of a new study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI) are anything to go by, perhaps we should do just that.

The group has examined crash records and insurance data for BMW and Nissan vehicles equipped with partially automated systems and has arrived at the following conclusion: There is little evidence that partial automation contributes to increased road safety.

"Everything we're seeing tells us that partial automation is a convenience feature like power windows or heated seats rather than a safety technology," IIHS president David Harkey said.

The results make the distinction between systems designed to take control of the vehicle and those aimed and crash avoidance-automatic emergency braking, blind spot warning, and lane departure prevention, for example. Those systems take over only when potential danger presents itself, such as when traffic is at a standstill before you and you still haven't touched the brakes. Overall, they are unobtrusive, so most drivers leave them switched on and only notice them when they're doing what they're supposed to do.

On the other hand, partial automation-once switched on by the driver-works constantly to keep the vehicle centered in the lane, always making appropriate adjustments to speed and steering input.

HLDI has conducted several investigations into potential safety benefits of crash avoidance technologies and concluded "that features that warn or intervene in an emergency reduce the frequency of insurance claims, and the reductions increase incrementally as one feature is stacked on another," according the findings published recently on iihs.org.

It adds that partial automation could help prevent crashes, as one of its chief components, adaptive cruise control, maintains safe following distances, while another component, lane centering, could alleviate side swipes and run-off-road crashes better than lane departure prevention, because lane centering theoretically preempts a departure rather than simply reacting to it.

In practice, however, there isn't much evidence to suggest this is happening. HLDI studied the crash and insurance reports from BMW and Nissan vehicles, and property damage claims (damage to other cars hit by the Nissan drivers) were eight percent lower for 2017-19 Nissan Rogues equipped with automatic braking and forward collision warning than those without. However, there was no additional benefit from having active cruise control or Nissan's ProPILOT Assist partial automation system, the report says.

Among 2013-17 BMW and Mini vehicles studied, automatic braking accounted for a 13 percent reduction in property damage claim rates. Driving Assistant Plus, BMW's automated driving system, accounted for no statistically significant reductions.

Granted, automated technologies have advanced in the years since these Nissans and BMWs donated their front and rear ends to science, as the cars studied range from five to 11 years old. But that simply means that all the years of data add up to form a clearer picture. And as IIHS senior vice president Jessica Cicchino advised, "With no clear evidence that partial automation is preventing crashes, users and regulators alike should not confuse it for a safety feature."

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