We live in an era that has little time for focus and attention. Where automotive safety is concerned, this is a far from ideal scenario: the ubiquitous presence of smart devices coupled with increasingly complex infotainment and in-vehicle connected services means there’s never been more to take a driver’s eyes off the road.
According to Swiss Re, distracted driving has superseded alcohol as the world’s number one cause of road deaths worldwide. The World Health Organization says distraction caused by mobile phones is a growing concern for road safety, with drivers using cell phones around four times more likely to be involved in a crash than drivers not using a cell phone. In the US, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates that of the 37,133 people who died in motor vehicle crashes in 2017, 3,166 were killed in distraction-related incidents; ‘distraction’, however, is difficult to verify, and the real figure is likely to be far higher.
The message must be firm and clear. The industry has already witnessed multiple times the potential for disaster if drivers are allowed to over-rely on semi-automated systems and take their eyes off the road
Automakers want to give drivers access to features without compromising their attention: voice control allows for hands-free operation, whilst smartphone integration platforms such as Android Auto give people easier access to calls and messaging. Both come with problems that require ongoing development: voice recognition is a far from perfect technology which, in the past, has been accused of making things worse, with drivers struggling to make themselves understood. Meanwhile, it’s questionable whether making it easier to access a phone’s functionality really provides a safety benefit when surely the most sensible idea is switching the thing off.
Ultimately, there is a permanent fix on the horizon: it is reasonable to assume that Level 5 autonomous driving could one day make the problem redundant. But its evolution must be handled carefully. Until such a time when the technology is sufficiently capable of hands-off, eyes-off operation, it is essential that automakers reinforce the message that the driver remains completely responsible.
It is a tough ask: even when a driver is wholly in total control of a vehicle, driving can be a monotonous task. To have parts of that task gradually removed will only make it more difficult to concentrate, and there is a school of thought that wonders if mid-level autonomy risks diminishing a driver’s sense of responsibility, making the roads more dangerous.
Ultimately, there is a permanent fix on the horizon: it is reasonable to assume that full autonomous driving could one day make the problem redundant
But the message must be firm and clear: The industry has already witnessed multiple times the potential for disaster if drivers are allowed to rely too heavily on semi-automated systems and take their eyes off the road. Uber’s self-driving vehicle in Tempe, which killed pedestrian Elaine Herzberg, is the most notorious example, but it is likely that multiple deaths involving Tesla Model S owners are due in part to its Autopilot system.
Tesla’s Autopilot is technically sold as a driver assistance system, but weak sanctions for abusers and a misleading name do not help the situation. Making matters worse is a tweet-happy chief executive who for years has promised—but has yet to deliver—a fully self-driving car, and who recently made a light-hearted, joking reference to an adult video reportedly shot in a moving Tesla on Autopilot—an obvious violation of guidelines, if true.
Further insight into driver distraction from a range of industry stakeholders is now available in Automotive World’s latest special report, ‘Driver distraction and the connected vehicle’.
