— Studies of how partial vehicle automation affects safety indicate partial automation may not do much for vehicle and occupant safety.
In a study conducted by the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, researchers found partial automation may be doing more harm than good.
A vehicle may use cameras and other sensors for partial automation systems allegedly meant to keep the vehicle within its lane and at a specific speed. A system may also cause a vehicle to slow down or accelerate based on traffic and road conditions.
But the owner's manual will also warn a driver to pay close attention to their surroundings and be ready to take control of the vehicle at any time. As the new studies show, not all drivers do.
According to researchers at IIHS, one study used 29 volunteers and 2017 Volvo S90 sedans equipped with Pilot Assist over a four week period.
All the drivers engaged in distracted driving activities such as using electronics, eating and grooming while using Pilot Assist. All the drivers were supposed to keep their hands on the steering wheels at all times.
Researchers found drivers were more distracted by using partial automation than without it, and drivers using the systems were more likely to multitask while driving. Drivers also found ways to keep the systems working by fooling them.
“These results are a good reminder of the way people learn. If you train them to think that paying attention means nudging the steering wheel every few seconds, then that’s exactly what they’ll do.” — IIHS President David Harkey
IIHS also found the tendency to multitask also increased over time for some drivers as they grew more comfortable with partial automation technology, while others were more distracted while using the systems from the start.
One study also included drivers using Tesla’s Autopilot system. Researchers discovered Tesla drivers quickly mastered the timing interval of its attention reminder feature so they could prevent warnings from getting worse.
According to IIHS, all the drivers adapted their behavior behind the wheel to engage in distracted driving while the partial automation systems were engaged.
In a test involving Tesla vehicles, volunteers drove more than 12,000 miles with Autopilot activated. The drivers triggered 3,858 attention-related warnings from the partial automation systems.
Tesla uses an escalation system for it semi-autonomous system, and IIHS found most warnings didn’t proceed beyond the initial attention reminder. But in 72 instances, the Tesla driver didn’t respond fast enough to prevent the alerts from escalating.
"Remarkably, 16 of these escalations — 12 of them from one driver and four from three others — persisted through the entire sequence to result in the driver being locked out of the system." — IIHS
Safety researchers determined better more stronger safeguards are needed to ensure drivers pay more attention when using partial automation.
