Q: From everything I’ve read in the news about autonomous cars, I
don’t want one. I’d rather drive myself than give that control to a car. Why is
everyone so excited about autonomous cars when people are getting killed in
them?
A: What if I told you people aren’t actually being killed by
autonomous vehicles? You might respond with any of the following: “Are you
forgetting the Uber crash in Arizona that killed a pedestrian? The Tesla crash
in Florida that killed its driver? The Tesla crash in California that killed
its driver? The other two Tesla crashes in Florida that killed their drivers?”
I haven’t forgotten any of those crashes, and they’re all a tragic
loss, just as all traffic fatalities are. It’s important to note that during
the time of those five crashes (the first one was in May of 2016) over 100,000
people have been killed in traffic crashes in the US. It’s also important to
note that those five crashes didn’t technically involve autonomous vehicles.
I’ll let you in on a little secret: autonomous cars don’t exist;
at least not ones that you and I can buy. Sure, there are companies running
cars without drivers on test tracks and in a few heavily controlled experiments
on public roads, but those cars are just practice for the future. What we have
now are cars with advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). This isn’t just
semantics. A truly autonomous car doesn’t need any human input to get where
it’s going. It doesn’t need a steering wheel or gas and brake pedals. But those
cars are still a long way off.
For now, we have cars that can do a lot for us, but still depend
on the human behind the wheel to pay attention and take action when necessary. We
often talk about autonomous or self-driving cars, but to be accurate, we’re
really discussing vehicles with varying levels of automation. In an effort to
get us all on the same page, the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE)
developed a scale for levels of automation. It ranges from zero to five, with
zero being a car that requires its driver to do all the steering, accelerating
and braking, and a level five car not needing a driver at all. Right now, you
can buy a level two car. These are vehicles that can control steering,
acceleration and braking, but require constant human oversight with the
expectation that the human driver will be actively engaged in the driving task;
this level of automation is what we call ADAS.
While not perfect, there is evidence that ADAS is helping. In a study by Insurance
Institute for Highway Safety, vehicles equipped with forward collision warning and automatic
emergency braking reduced rear-end crashes by half. Without digging into the
details, the study found positive outcomes for lane departure warning and
prevention, blind spot detection, and rear crash prevention.
But all these assistive tools only work when they’re on, and a J.D. Powers
study found that a concerning number of drivers find the safety notifications in
their cars either annoying or confusing and choose to turn them off. My own
anecdotal experience confirms the J.D. Powers study. I’ve talked with several
people who rented cars and, instead of being helped by lane departure
prevention, were terrified by it. If you don’t know the vehicle you’re driving
has lane assist and the car fights against you when you turn the steering wheel
I could understand if you experience a wave of panic as you worry that the
robots are taking over and you’re their first target.
This is less of a technology problem and more of an education problem. Car dealers and rental car companies now have a new responsibility; teaching people how to drive a car that has driver assistance. So far efforts toward this kind of teaching have been a mixed bag, varying from one car manufacturer to another. How this education happens more consistently and effectively is one of the discussions happening in the traffic safety community right now.
Driver assistance is a great safety tool, but I have to point out what it is not: an excuse to pay less attention while driving. The Uber and Tesla crashes that made national news are evidence that driving, even in a car well-equipped with safety features, still requires continuous human attention and action.