Researchers at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) wanted to know if advanced driver assistance systems – such as adaptive cruise control and active lane-keeping — would handle driving tasks as humans would.
The answer is, “not always.” So drivers in vehicles with those features should not give up control. But as long as the people at the wheel remain alert, semi-autonomous vehicles can, in fact, make driving safer.
“Adaptive cruise control is designed to slow for cars ahead and can come to a full stop but may not react to already-stopped vehicles,” the IIHS report said. On the other hand, the Tesla Model 3 was cited for unnecessary or overly cautious braking, sometimes for tree shadows on the road.
Active lane-keeping systems that rely on road markings to keep vehicles in their lanes were sometimes thrown off by hills or curves that obscured the lane markings.
WANADA continues to track research and developments on autonomous vehicles at its annual MobilityTalks International Conference, a three-day industry meeting preceding the Washington Auto Show, set next year for April 2-4, 2019.
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