Written by | Little devil
With the continuous advancement of intelligent driving technology, many cars with autonomous driving assistance as the selling point have emerged in the market.
Of course, although car companies know that such cars are still a long way from the driverless cars (L5 level) that the public knows, this does not stop them from commercially hyping up these L2-level systems that offer something beyond their capabilities.
Cadillac Super Cruise System Super Cruise
In particular, car companies have also used some confusing names for their driver assistance systems that are easy to make consumers cognitively biased, such as Tesla's Autopilot, Volvo's Pilot Assist, and GM's Super Cruise.
As driver assistance systems jump to the mainstream safety configuration of today's cars, the National Association for Highway Safety Insurance (IIHS) also believes it is time to conduct a formal study of the safety of these systems, especially to understand the extent to which these systems play a role in reducing intentional or unintentional abuse by users.
THE IIHS itself is not a government agency and cannot develop legal automotive safety standards, but it can use its rating system to guide the development of safety technology, so in some areas IIHS ratings can be said to be more ahead of NHTSA's rating system.
IIHS said it will establish a "safety rating" for some of the automation technologies on the market, which will be divided into four grades: good, acceptable, passing and poor.
The reason for this rating is simple, because IIHS has not yet seen the real benefits that car companies claim that some of the automation will bring to safe driving.
THE IIHS'S Institute for Road Damage Data conducted a 2020 study of BMW cars from 2013 to 2017 and found that the increase in pre-collision warning and adaptive cruise control did effectively reduce property damage and personal injury, but "as part of BMW's partial autopilot assistance suite, the impact of the added lane centering function is not very large."
IIHS Chairman David Harkey said: "Some automated systems may make long-distance driving look less tiring, but there is no evidence that they make driving safer. In fact, if the system lacks adequate safeguards, the opposite may be true. ”
THE IIHS argues that some manufacturers have exaggerated the performance of their driver assistance systems, prompting drivers to think of them as cars they can drive on their own.
There are records showing that in many highway accidents caused by speeding, the driver assistance system did not play a "positive role". The survey found that many drivers watch videos, play games and even take naps in the car after turning on the driver assistance function.
For example, a fatal car accident involving a Tesla Model X in 2018 is like this.
According to the California Highway Patrol, on the morning of March 23, 2018, a Tesla Model X hit the middle guardrail while driving south on U.S. Highway 101, causing the car to catch fire, and the driver died shortly after being taken to the hospital due to serious injuries. This can be said to be the first major accident that occurred in Tesla vehicles in 2018.
Afterwards, Tesla restored the driving log in the car computer and released the results of the investigation on its official website:
"In the pre-collision period (before 9:27 a.m. on Friday, March 23), automatic assisted driving was in use, and the following distance in active cruise control was set to the minimum distance. During the driving process, the system issued several video prompts and 1 sound prompt, asking the driver to hold the steering wheel with both hands. But within 6 seconds before the accident, the system did not detect the driver putting his hands on the steering wheel. From 150 meters from the concrete barrier of the highway, the driver's field of vision can clearly see the barrier and has a reaction time of about 5 seconds. Unfortunately, the driving log shows that the driver did not take any action. ”
THE IIHS said the accident was most likely caused by the driver playing a video game while "driving.".
So in IIHS's view, what kind of driver assistance system is good, or can it get a high rating from IIHS? It is not that the more abundant the driver assistance hardware and the more functions we usually think of, the easier it is to get high scores, IIHS has set up a series of seemingly harsh "obstacles" for car companies that want to get high scores.
First, the system must be able to track the driver's line of sight and ensure that the driver can hold the steering wheel in hand to see the road throughout the driving process, or be ready to take over the steering wheel at any time.
The IIHS believes cars must provide "escalation alerts" and have "proper emergency procedures" in place when drivers are distracted.
This "escalation alarm" should contain different kinds of warning measures - "warning tone, vibration, retracted seat belt, brake deceleration", the more types the higher the score. When the driver does not make any action feedback in the face of the vehicle warning, the system should also lock the vehicle in time until the engine is turned off and stopped and started again.
In addition, if the driver disables any functions (automatic emergency braking, lane departure warning, etc.) or does not wear a seat belt, then the driver assistance system should not work.
IIHS research scientist Alexandra Mueller explains: "As humans, it's harder to be alert when we observe and wait for problems to occur than when we drive ourselves. ”
That's why a hypothetical "good" score requires so many safeguards. This is also why advanced safety features, while reducing accident rates, do not completely eliminate accidents.
If the driver doesn't know how to use it or deliberately makes trouble, then no matter how advanced the driver assistance system of the car company is, it doesn't make sense. For now, the latter is too easy to do.
Of course, IIHS also made it clear that it doesn't think any automaker's system will get a high score in its first rating later this year.
The group wrote in a statement: "While most parts of the automated system have some safety safeguards in place to help ensure drivers are focused and prepared, none of them meet all pending IIHS standards." ”【iDailycar】