I haven't heard of cruise control being blamed for distracted driving. I am surprised Tesla has gotten away with calling its features "Autopilot"! That sounds like an invitation for a class action suit.
There have been many crashes and fatalities attributed to both adaptive cruise and autopilot. Autopilot specifically has many reports of people sleeping or reading while it's engaged. There was a lot of demand for tesla to change the name but they refused, and as you said, I think the fine print protected them. There are supposedly failsafes in place in the car to make sure that the driver keeps their hands on the wheel and pay attention to the road, but they are obviously easily defeated.
A 2019 crash in Florida highlights how gaps in Tesla’s driver-assistance system and distractions can have tragic consequences.
www.nytimes.com
The Tesla vehicle crashed into a tree and burst into flames, according to the reports.
www.cnbc.com
A 38-year-old driver from Palatine, Illinois, was ticketed and accused of sleeping behind the wheel of a 2019 Tesla, according to a sheriff's report.
www.nbcnews.com
"From what I saw they were out like a light, but then there was a couple moments where it looked like they almost woke up, then went back to sleep," a witness told Global News.
globalnews.ca
It’s clear you have no experience with Adaptive Cruise. You are also equating adaptive cruise with Tesla AutoPilot,
I’ve used ACC on various vehicles, in multiple different countries. You pontificate on negatives that are totally inaccurate and reveal your ignorance.
You are wrong.
Over and out.
You are correct in assuming that I have never driven or even been in a vehicle with adaptive cruise, but that doesn't mean I'm not familiar with how it works. But my argument has nothing to do with how it works, my argument is solely with regard to how people interact with it. And I understand that adaptive cruise and Autopilot are not exactly the same, but I'm comparing them because both systems take some degree of vehicle control away from the driver.
And I'm sure you know as well as I do that Humans, as a rule, have a very short attention span, and if they no longer need to focus on maintaining a safe distance from the vehicle in front of them (as both adaptive cruise and autopilot manage this), they will quickly become bored and look for something else to do. As the links I provided above show (yes they are specific to autopilot), it clearly happens.
To expand on what I said before, I'm sure you are a more than competent driver, and knowing how the system works and what it's true intended purpose is, you will continue to keep your hands on the wheel and pay attention to the road and traffic around you. But I'm willing to bet you are the exception to the rule.
As for the totally inaccurate negatives on which I pontificate; if I am ignorant and wrong, then IIHS, NHTSA, AAA, and more must also be ignorant and wrong as they all investigated adaptive cruise systems and found similar things to what I am saying:
___
Auto technology has come a long way in the last few decades, including the advancement of standard cruise control to adaptive cruise control (ACC). ACC is a system that automatically adjusts a car’s speed to keep a safe following distance and remain within the set spe
murrayandmurray.legalexaminer.com
"A more recent
2019 study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety determined that these systems make their drivers more vulnerable to a crash. Drivers assume they’re safer with it on, so they don’t pay close attention while driving. They put a little too much trust in their systems and don’t always fully understand it, outweighing the safety benefits. That study found that ACC and ACC with pilot assist make drivers nearly
twice as likely to become distracted drivers, a sobering statistic indeed."
"Setting and forgetting means more time for your mind to wander away from focusing on the road"
___
Adaptive cruise control systems on cars, which control braking and speed, raise the risk of traffic crashes because the technology leads drivers to go faster, a U.S. study found on Thursday.
www.reuters.com
"The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that drivers using adaptive cruise control (ACC) were more likely to set a target speed that was over the limit because of the perception that the system enhanced their safety.
"The research concluded that drivers using the technology were at a 10% higher risk of a fatal crash compared to manual drivers due to the faster cruising speeds selected."
NOTE: Admittedly I never included issues regarding speeding, but this shows that there's a correlation between ACC and increased crash risk.
___
The attached report from the NHTSA investigated adaptive cruise control as well as the effectiveness of Forward Collision Warning systems to regain the attention of distracted drivers. They studied mild, moderate, and severe braking events and found that ACC helped in mild and moderate braking events but had no effect in severe braking situations.
"As a form of automation that offers relatively little feedback and operates with a high level of authority, ACC may ... undermine driving safety. In one simulator study, approximately one third of drivers were not successful in assuming control after the ACC had failed (Stanton et al., 1997). Distractions associated with cell phones and other in-vehicle
technology may exacerbate this effect by encouraging drivers to rely on vehicle automation and neglect the driving task."
"Another possible risk associated with ACC is that automating parts of the driving task will lead drivers to engage in more distracting tasks and to engage in those tasks more frequently."
I will admit that they also discuss the following:
"Drivers with ACC did not look away from the road any more frequently than drivers without ACC, nor did they engage the secondary task more rapidly. This result is consistent with recent field data that showed drivers did not increase the frequency with which they engaged in secondary tasks when they began using an ACC-equipped vehicle"
This would back up your personal experience that you did not become more easily distracted while using ACC. However they go on to explain that the way the study was conducted, the drivers were instructed to engage in the "secondary task" at certain specific points during the test. And that the braking event only occurred once the driver was engaged in the "secondary task", though not every "secondary task" triggered a braking event. So it's not really an accurate depiction of a driver becoming distracted.
___
Please understand Henfield, I mean no disrespect and I don't want to cause an argument. I stated an opinion and later admitted that part of it was too harsh, I understand and accept your opinion that ACC is a useful tool and even acknowledged that in your case that may be absolutely true. The beautiful thing about opinions is that they can differ without either one being wrong; but since you specifically stated that I am ignorant and wrong I felt compelled to provide specific evidence that I'm not, but I also included evidence which supports your opinion.
I wish you all the best with your ACC equipped vehicles.
Edit: forgot to attach the NHTSA report
