#AdvancedDrivingSystems

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has cooked up a new ratings program to encourage automakers to implement even more electronic nannies, including the kind that watch your every move behind the wheel, because the current batch have been deemed inadequate.

“We evaluated partial automation systems from BMW, Ford, General Motors, Genesis, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Tesla and Volvo,” IIHS President David Harkey said. “Most of them don’t include adequate measures to prevent misuse and keep drivers from losing focus on what’s happening on the road.”

Tesla is recalling over 2 million vehicles in the United States that have been equipped with its Autopilot advanced driver-assistance system. Efforts come after years of media attention and federal safety regulators suggesting that the system posed safety concerns. The automaker is reportedly issuing an over-the-air update that will add new safeguards against distracted driving.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has been formally investigating the EV manufacturer for the last two years and believes Autopilot poses enough of a safety risk in its current format to push for the recall. That makes this the largest example in the company’s history, encompassing just about every Tesla model ever produced.

Toyota will be launching nine new studies over the next five years to improve automotive safety, specifically in relation to how drivers engage with advanced driving aids equipped to modern vehicles. While the press release to a back seat to the automaker receiving an award for hiring female engineers and a $400,000 donation to the National Environmental Education Foundation, it’s likely to have broader ramifications on the industry.

Despite launching a bevy of new assistance features over the past few years, manufacturers haven’t actually spent all that much time studying how they might impact the act of driving. Testing usually focuses on ensuring the system functions, with independent research being left to examine how electronic helpers might influence behavior from behind the wheel. Unfortunately, preliminary studies have suggested that they lull motorists into a false sense of security, potentially offsetting any legitimate safety advantages the relevant technologies provide.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) is claiming that individuals shopping for a secondhand automobile end up learning less about the modern features lurking within their automobiles. Considering salespeople have meetings about how best to hype the advanced driving aids in new models, this one really shouldn’t have required a survey for the IIHS to piece it together. But the outlet appears to be attempting to link this alleged lack of knowledge to make claims that it’ll somehow contribute to the probably of used vehicles being involved in a crash.

“Used car buyers were substantially less likely than new car buyers to know about the advanced driver assistance features present on their vehicles,” stated IIHS Senior Research Scientist Ian Reagan, the author of the study. “They were also less likely to be able to describe how those features work, and they had less trust in them. That could translate into less frequent use, causing crash reductions from these systems to wane.”