It might come as a surprise, but no car that can be purchased from a dealer lot today is capable of truly autonomous driving. Even though carmakers use terms like “Autopilot,” the fact remains that every automobile that is sold to the public—regardless of if it’s a Tesla or a Super Cruise-equipped Cadillac—can’t be safely driven without someone behind the wheel always in control of the situation.
Now, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety is aiming to improve public awareness of how these systems work, and their limitations, by issuing ratings to new vehicles that offer partial vehicle autonomy through their onboard Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) features.
Officially, the industry-accepted term for a vehicle’s ability to help control braking, acceleration, and steering is referred to as “partial automation.”
Vehicles that offer this type of assistance employ onboard sensors and software. For example, short-wave radar uses radio frequencies to gauge the distance between vehicles and adjust vehicle speed using adaptive cruise control. Onboard cameras detect lane markings so that a car can center itself in a lane, and some emerging vehicles will be equipped with LIDAR sensors to help avoid obstacles. All of these add-ons help create a tech stack capable of assisting the human behind the wheel, but it might not actually improve driver safety in all scenarios, especially if the driver gets a false sense of security and stops paying attention.
“Partial automation systems may make long drives seem like less of a burden, but there is no evidence that they make driving safer,” said President David in a statement. “In fact, the opposite may be the case if systems lack adequate safeguards.”
It is the Institute’s opinion that some automakers have oversold the capability of these systems, and that a proper safety rating could help buyers be more informed and conscious about how these systems actually work.
It’s important to note that the ratings are not to be confused with those which are meant to map the functional level of an ADAS system to a corresponding level of automation. For example, Level 0 is full manual control with no digital help, Level 2 is typical modern lane centering and throttle control, and Level 5 is truly self-driving, in which someone can take a nap while the car drives itself.
In this case, the is creating a safety rating that may encourage automakers to make better design choices—specifically around active driver supervision—when designing ADAS systems. It already does this for other areas of the vehicle (all the way down to the headlights) and uses the data to factor in overall safety.
place a vehicle in one of four categories: good, acceptable, marginal, or poor. The rating depends on how closely its software aligns with the newly-developed benchmarks, which are outlined below scenarios.
The Institute acknowledges that it’s impossible to read a driver’s mind to make sure that they aren’t daydreaming, but there are a few steps that can be taken to make sure that eyes are kept on the road and hands on the wheel, when applicable. This would largely be the responsibility of a driver-facing camera that can monitor the operator’s gaze and the position of their hands.
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