Partial automation may help keep drivers engaged

Georgia SmithDecember 2, 2024, 7:14 amDecember 6, 2024

A new study has found that drivers who are used to partial automation that switches off when they try to share control over the steering are less willing to steer or put their hands on the wheel in sticky situations.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) study has shown that in contrast, drivers of vehicles with systems that allow some manual steering are more inclined to take an active role.

According to the IIHS, one way to help keep drivers engaged is by designing systems to allow what’s known as cooperative steering.

Partial automation systems designed this way let the driver make minor adjustments within the travel lane without deactivating.Most drivers believe that’s the way their own system works, whether or not that’s the case, the IIHS study shows.

But those whose vehicles really do allow shared control are 40 per cent – 48 per cent less likely than the others to say they would keep their hands off the wheel in situations that would make most drivers nervous.

System design survey

To better understand the impact of system design, the IIHS conducted an online survey of 1,260 owners of Ford, General Motors, Nissan/Infiniti and Tesla vehicles equipped with partial automation who regularly use the technology.

Ford’s BlueCruise system and Nissan/Infiniti’s ProPILOT Assist system remain switched on when the driver makes steering adjustments within the lane. General Motors’ Super Cruise system and Tesla’s Autopilot system stop their lane-centreing support when the driver gives steering input.

Both the Nissan and Tesla systems studied require the driver to keep their hands on the wheel, while the Ford and General Motors systems allow hands-free driving under certain conditions. A current version of ProPILOT Assist that allows hands-free driving wasn’t available in the vehicles owned by the survey participants.

To gauge whether participants understood how their systems responded to manual steering, the research team showed them a video clip depicting the procedure used by the IIHS partial automation safeguards rating program to determine if a system allows cooperative steering.

In the video, a driver executed a gentle manoeuvre to bring the vehicle from one side of the lane to the other. After watching it, the respondents were asked how their system responds when they make a similar steering adjustment.

IIHS tests confirm that this manoeuvre causes both the Tesla and GM systems to stop their lane-centering support, while the Ford and Nissan systems continue to provide that support but allow the driver to dictate the vehicle’s position in the lane. Once the Tesla system switches off, it must be reactivated by the driver. The GM system can reactivate automatically, but only if the driver first returns the vehicle to the centre of the lane and then stops steering. Even then, there can be a lag before it resumes.

Despite those rather stark differences, the respondents tended to think that their systems stayed on and continued to help steer when they executed a manoeuvre like the one shown in the video, even when they didn’t. However, the actual operating parameters of their systems affected their answers to other survey questions about how they would behave in specific driving scenarios.