How drivers learn to ignore autopilot systems

New automotive technologies are great, until your clients learn to punk them.

Drivers of cars with various auto assist systems are more likely to multitask and quickly learn to work around driver-attention safeguards, according to a pair of recent month-long studies of driver behaviours conducted by the U.S.-based Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s AgeLab.

“These results are a good reminder of the way people learn,” says IIHS president David Harkey. “If you train them to think that paying attention means nudging the steering wheel every few seconds, then that’s exactly what they’ll do.”

Autopilot systems use cameras and sensors to help keep a car moving down the center of a travel lane at the speed a driver selects, slow the car down to avoid other vehicles, and accelerate when the road is clear.

 

Two studies, similar findings

The first study finds drivers of cars equipped with Volvo’s Pilot Assist partial automation technology more frequently ate, groomed, or used electronic devices while the system was engaged compared to when they drove unassisted. “This was true whether they used the feature a lot or hardly at all,” the study notes.

The second study examines drivers using Tesla’s Autopilot system to see how often they triggered the car’s initial attention reminders, escalated warnings, and emergency slowdown and lockout procedures. A key finding is that operators can quickly learn the timing intervals of those features “so that they could prevent warnings from escalating to more serious interventions,” IIHS says.

The second study finds “drivers did non-driving secondary activities, looked away from the road, and had both hands off the wheel more often during the alerts and in the 10 seconds before and after them as they learned how the attention reminders worked,” says IIHS. “The longer they used the system, the less time it took them to take their hands off the wheel again once the alerts stopped.”

 

Impacts in Canada

Outreach to brokers and adjusters in Canada determine there’s not much claims data suggesting an overreliance on automated systems is leading to increased accidents.

But, while the IIHS study is U.S.-based, sources note the vehicles examined are common on Canadian roads, so it’s likely drivers here engage in similar behaviours.

What’s more, David Repinski, Group CEO at claims adjusting firm CRU, says that while he cannot yet cite specific claims, it’s important to grasp the anticipated shift in related claims from auto liability to products liability.

“When the operator of a car causes an accident, they face an auto liability claim. When an autonomous vehicle equipped with a complex automated system [that’s] engaged and operating…allegedly causes an accident, it’s a products liability claim,” he tells CU. “This presumably shifts the liability from the driver to the manufacturer of the vehicle and/or autonomous systems.

“This stands to drive a significant insurance and legal shift.”

No cars on Canadian or U.S. roads are fully autonomous; and yet, IIHS research shows that when a driver’s attention wanders for long periods, the risk of a crash increases.

“These results show that escalating, multimodal attention reminders are very effective in getting drivers to change their behaviour,” says the study’s lead author, IIHS senior research scientist Alexandra Mueller.

“However, better safeguards are needed to ensure that the behaviour change actually translates to more attentive driving.”

 

Feature image by iStock/TommL