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Active Driving Assistance Systems "Do Not Perform Consistently," Says AAA

Auto emergency braking? Check. Lane keeping assist? Double check. Radar-based cruise control with stop-and-go functionality? That’s useful too. Many cars, utility vehicles, and trucks are loaded with active safety, but the American Automobile Association suggests that automakers could do much better.
Active Driving Assistance Systems testing 12 photos
Photo: AAA
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Active driving assistance systems do not perform consistently, especially in real-word scenarios,” said director of automotive engineering and industry relations Greg Brannon. “More dependable technology,” is a must, “including improving lane keeping assistance and providing more adequate alerts.”

My personal car, for example, knows how to stay centered in the lane I am driving on. However, the system works only if the surface markings are perfectly visible. Any stretch of road where they’re not well defined, the LKA disengages without alerting me by vibrating the steering wheel but with a chime that I rarely hear when the radio is on. The car in question is a European-specification Hyundai i30.

AEB is another issue on my trusty little hatchback. The forward-facing camera sometimes gives incorrect alerts regarding a possible collision, and even when the sensitivity is set to the minimum, this issue doesn’t go away. No piece of tech is perfect, that’s for certain, but Hyundai clearly needs to test their auto emergency braking in the real world in addition to a controlled environment.

The American Automobile Association claims that the vehicles they’ve tested over the course of 4,000 miles of real-world driving “experienced some type of issue every 8 miles, on average.” That’s worrying, to say the least, more so because automakers charge an arm and a leg for some of these systems.

But that’s not all. AAA found out that approximately 1 in 10 drivers would trust riding in a self-driving car. This goes to show that the remaining 9 drivers wouldn’t because they don’t trust the active assistance in their own vehicles. “With the number of issues we experienced in testing, it is unclear how these systems enhance the driving experience in their current form,” added Brannon.

The vehicles tested by the AAA to produce these results are newer models of the Cadillac CT6, Ford Edge, BMW X7, Kia Telluride, and Subaru Outback.
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About the author: Mircea Panait
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After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well.
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