Yahoo Autos Drivers Aren't Turning Off Advanced Safety Tech As Much Anymore: IIHS
Not too long ago, automated and active safety features — lane departure warning, lane keep assistance, speed limit warning, etc. — were major pain points for most new car owners: under-delivering on their promises, annoying drivers with constant alerts, or both. But according to a new study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), that attitude is changing; IIHS says the vast majority of owners who own vehicles equipped with these technologies now regularly utilize them. Or, at the very least, find them less annoying enough that they don't turn them off.
The study, which involved more than 2000 cars and trucks from various automakers being worked on at dealer service centers across the greater Washington, D.C. area, looked to determine the usage of front crash prevention, lane departure, and visual speed warning systems. The vehicles themselves ranged from the 2017 to 2023 model years, a time span that pretty much ensured most test subjects were equipped with some form of active safety feature.
Specifically, 87% of drivers in the study opted to leave lane departure warning and prevention systems in place. That’s a huge increase from the 51% found in a similar study conducted eight years ago. Furthermore, only 1% of the vehicles in the recent study came equipped with a warning system alone — meaning the majority of the systems play an active role in keeping the car in its lane. That’s important, as IIHS states that active lane departure warning and prevention systems could prevent as many as 23% of fatal passenger vehicle crashes in the States.
Additionally, a staggering 94% of vehicles in the study had their forward collision warning or automatic emergency braking system activated. (Of course, these systems are much more difficult to turn off than a typical lane keep assist function.) The study also found software-based controls buried inthe infotainment screen are less likely to be turned off than traditional hard buttons.
“The results reflect a combination of better designs and a growing acceptance of crash avoidance systems, more generally,” IIHS research scientist Aimee Cox, the lead author of the study, said in a statement. “The new designs make the feature a little harder to turn off and a lot less annoying for the driver.”
Drivers are also using visual speed warning systems at a high frequency, with nearly 70% of vehicles surveyed having the feature activated. IIHS notes that these systems are relatively new to the U.S. market, and that such a high usage rate bodes well for the future.
“The increased acceptance of lane departure prevention should translate into larger reductions in crash rates,” said IIHS president David Harkey. “The same thing can happen with anti-speeding alerts — which these results show are already more popular with drivers than some experts believed possible.”
Let us know in the comments below which automated safety features you’ve grown to like in your cars, and which ones continue to annoy you as an owner. It doesn’t seem like this tech is going anywhere, so we might as well help try and make it more useful.
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