Is Your Car's Computer Causing ACCIDENTS?

[Applause] what's up guys today i want to talk to you about driver aids now anytime you hear about a tesla for example crashing on the news or on social media people usually roll their eyes and assume it was because of the autopilot system or that the driver put too much faith into the autopilot system right we've seen it time and time again and tesla get a bad reputation because of this but the issue isn't exclusive to teslas what not a lot of people realize is that nearly all modern cars feature some level of advanced driver assistance system or adas including these two here so most of us will have experienced cars that turn the wheel to keep us in lane or even automatically break themselves in an emergency what i want to ask today is is it a bit scary giving our cars this level of control is it really a good thing and a driver aids actually making journeys more dangerous over in america the authorities are getting quite worried about this worried enough that they're actually ordering manufacturers to file reports detailing any accidents involving cars fitted with adas technology because they want to see if it's actually causing crashes instead of preventing crashes as intended and now that everything from super minis to suvs to supercars comes as standard with some form of computer controlled intervention that's designed to take over in an emergency well it could be a cause for concern should you be worried is this the skynet moment where we lose control of our machines and it's all too late but without getting too dramatic the short answer is no cars are safer than they've ever been no doubt about that it wasn't so long ago that rear seat belts were a bit of a novelty anti-lock brakes was something you only got on premium cars and the only person who actually got an airbag was the driver if they were lucky now we're pretty much at the point where i wouldn't be surprised to see airbags specifically to protect your shopping in the boot this has to be a good thing but you clicked on the video and you're waiting for me to say why certain safety systems might not be a good idea right well i don't want to be pessimistic but i do worry about the unintended consequences let me give you an example rollover protection back in the day car bodies were super weak so if you rolled over in an accident the roof will be squashed as flat as a pancake and now they install super thick pillars all around the car meaning you have terrible visibility and huge blind spots a safety feature with a negative unintended consequence suvs and crossovers are an extension of that mentality they make us feel safer but their design means it's hard to see certain obstacles like fences and bullets and even children you need cameras and sensors to make up for the fact that you might hit something you can't see unintended consequence and there are plenty of unintended consequences with driver aids we know the tech isn't perfect and there could be situations where it might actually be counterproductive if you've ever driven any modern car the chances are it will be fitted with some kind of active lane keeping assist or automated emergency braking in fact auto braking is going to be mandatory on all cars from 2022 and i'm willing to bet that you've been in a situation where you're driving along fully engaged with the road ahead and the steering has jerked itself left or right or the brakes have slammed on for seemingly no reason it's happened to me countless times sure these might be well intentioned but like the boy who cried wolf how many false positives does it take before you start ignoring the warnings or getting annoyed by them and switching them off take lane keeping it uses cameras to monitor your distance from the white lines and can actually make steering interventions to keep you between them i know people who deliberately turn off lane keep assist every time they get in the car because they don't trust it it's too weird for them but maybe they're doing the right thing i don't know i've used it a lot and you do find yourself switching off mentally you know that the car is gonna go around the bend for you as long as you have your hands on the steering wheel so you don't focus as intently on the road ahead so the unintended consequence here is that you don't pay as much attention as you should because of the safety tech also lane keep assist is pretty rubbish on a lot of roads like a-roads it's not always easy or even sensible to stay in your lane on some types of road advanced driving instructors will actually teach you to move around within or even cross the white lines to improve your sight lines where it's appropriate and where it's safe to do so but the car can only react to your distance from the white lines rather than anticipating your actions and that means you end up having the electronic equivalent of a panicky passenger screaming at you every time you turn the wheel forcing you back into your lane if you're trying to avoid an obstacle like a cyclist or a horse or a jogger or an animal on the side of the road but the steering nudges you back towards them then that becomes dangerous while the system is trying to avoid one type of imaginary crash that it thinks is going to happen it causes an actual crash unintended consequences with automated emergency braking systems i've heard of cars trying to break to a complete standstill in the middle of the road because another car in front was filtering in and those systems go nuts when you approach those traffic calming chicanes or any number of other everyday situations where you drive along minding your own business under full control and then bang emergency stop this isn't just annoying for you the person behind you won't be expecting it either and even if they're not you know an audi driver they might end up piling into the back of you there's an even more worrying trend as well and that's the fact that many of these safety systems are being offered to buyers in the form of cost options or tech packages or other upgrades and there's the risk i think that some people might think they've literally bought the right to not check their blind spots because they're paid extra for a warning bleeper that does it for them even responsible drivers could get caught out you might pay extra for that stop and go cruise control system but what happens if the car doesn't bring itself to a halt as advertised and you plow into the car in front whose fault was that it was a while back and the tech has gotten better since then but there was that infamous press demo where volvo wanted to prove how effective their automated braking system was and the car just drove straight into the back of a parks lorry in front of a packed crowd of journalists it was super awkward we need to remember that these safety systems are just tools and like any tool you need to know how to use it you don't just put your faith into the tool until you know how to use it properly and it's the same with these systems it's on the driver to understand how to use them safely for example one of the team here had a family member who swore blind that she had to manually switch the stability control system on every time she started the car and the little yellow exclamation mark on the dash meant that it was working in fact she was turning it off but she trusted the salesperson who mistakenly had told her that that was what she needed to do scary right and like i said at the beginning these days you don't have to look too far on social media to find people willing to put their own lives and the lives of others in danger to test the self-driving claims of their new car some of these systems effectively make excuses for bad habits too i was testing a new car recently and it had a feature that reminded you when the car in front has pulled away when you're in traffic why would you even need that unless you're going to be on your phone or not paying any attention it's a bit like manufacturers are sometimes giving people the excuse to not pay attention like i said in an ideal world these gizmos are great they're great tools but unfortunately so some of the people using them so what should we do should we strip all of this stuff out and go back to the days of no seat belts or driving with a big spike in the middle of the steering wheel to serve as a constant reminder of how dangerous getting it wrong can be no which is not a bad idea but no of course not the advances in safety technology and huge reduction in the number of injuries and deaths on the road can only be a good thing and we can't and we shouldn't be flippants about that case in point a study for the european transport safety council found that automatic emergency braking systems prevent nearly one in two rear end collisions in a survey looking at literally millions of case studies and you can't argue with that one engineer we spoke to pointed out that if you're always triggering these systems and getting a lot of what you think might be false positives then the chances are the problem is with your driving and not with the black boxes all i would say is that even the most sophisticated safety aids are only that aids and being a safe driver will always be about paying attention to what's going on around you we're still drivers so drive the most important safety feature on any car for better or worse is still the nut that holds the wheel thanks for watching guys hope you enjoyed this video let me know what your opinions are of safety tech and as always don't forget to like subscribe stay safe out there [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: AutoTrader

Views: 33,629

Rating: 4.9371729 out of 5

Keywords: driver aids, lane keeping assist, auto braking, driver safety aids, are driver aids dangerous, dangerous driver aids, tesla autopilot, autopilot crash, tesla autopilot crash, car crash, tesla, mercedes, bmw, car review, 4k review, rory reid, rory reid autotrader

Id: dAUehcV7Mro

Length: 9min 53sec (593 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 20 2021