No, That Car Is Not Self-Driving
By Sean Tucker 10/11/2022 8:22am
There are no self-driving cars for sale in America today. But the guy next to you in traffic may think he has one. See that sandwich? He’s trusting that car a little too much.
That’s the unsettling conclusion of a new study from one of America’s most important car safety advocates.
In a study published this week, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) found that many motorists trust driver assistance systems to do things they can’t do.
Self-Driving Cars: Everything You Need to Know
Current Automation Is Limited
To make sense of the story, a few explanations may be in order.
First, the institute itself. The IIHS is an auto safety lab and advocacy group funded by the car insurance industry. It exists to minimize car accidents because insurance companies make money when accidents are rare.
Second, a driver assistance system is a car feature that takes some workload from the driver in limited circumstances. They are not capable of driving a car unsupervised.
To make sense of their claims, the auto industry relies on a framework of levels devised by SAE International, a global association of engineers and related technical experts in the aerospace, automotive, and commercial-vehicle industries.
Level 0 is a car that can’t accelerate, brake itself, or steer itself. Level 5 is a car that can drive itself under any conditions and may not even have a steering wheel.
The most advanced systems for sale in America today are Level 2. They work only on a limited set of roads. And they require a driver to pay attention and be ready to take over at all times.
Study Shows Many Don’t Know That
The IIHS surveyed drivers who own cars with three different Level 2 systems – General Motors’ Super Cruise, Tesla’s Autopilot, and Nissan’s ProPilot Assist.
All three can steer to keep a car in its lane and accelerate or brake to match traffic speed. All three are supposed to monitor the driver’s awareness and prompt them to snap back to the task if their attention drifts (though they might not be very good at that).
None of the three is autonomous.
Only GM’s system, the IIHS says, is designed to allow drivers to briefly remove their hands from the wheel.
IIHS asked “about 200” users of each system how they used them. And here we’ll just quote the worst part:
“Fifty-three percent of Super Cruise users, 42% of Autopilot users, and 12% of ProPilot Assist users said that they were comfortable treating their vehicles as fully self-driving,” IIHS says.
Users reported texting and eating behind the wheel while the systems were engaged.
Even a warning from the system itself didn’t stop some of them. Both Super Cruise and Autopilot will lock users out of the feature if they fail to respond to attention warnings. About 40% of users admitted that the systems had locked them out for not paying attention at some point.
Researchers Blame Advertising
What makes us too willing to rely on systems that actively remind us not to rely on them? The IIHS thinks advertising is to blame.
“TV commercials for Super Cruise focus on its hands-free capabilities by depicting drivers patting their laps and clapping their hands along with a song,” The institute notes. The name Autopilot, meanwhile, “implies Tesla’s system is more capable than it really is.”
The state of California agrees and recently accused Tesla of false advertising over the name.
“In contrast, the name ProPilot Assist suggests that it’s an assistance feature, rather than a replacement for the driver,” IIHS says. Of the three groups studied, Nissan owners were least likely to overestimate what their driver assistance system could do.
A coalition of car safety groups recently joined together to ask the auto industry to agree to a single naming scheme for driver assistance systems so car shoppers could better understand what they can, and can’t, do.