Dear Reader,
at the end of last year, four consumer advocacy groups in the US - the American Automobile Association (AAA), Consumer Reports magazine, J.D. Power, and the National Safety Council - announced that they had come together to adopt standardized names for advanced driver assistance technology. In an effort to reduce confusion among consumers about what each ADAS feature actually does, they came up with 19 standard names for common ADAS features. Recently the US Department of Transportation and the SAE endorsed the effort to standardize names.
I recently checked in with Kelly Funkhouser, Program Manager for Vehicle Interface Testing at Consumer Reports, who told me, "The response from industry has been overwhelmingly positive."
I, for one, am not positive about the effort to attach standard names to all ADAS features. If the names are standardized, car buyers will expect all such systems to work equally well. This is certainly not the case in practice with Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) for pedestrians. Last year the AAA reported results from its tests of four 2019 pedestrian-detection-equipped vehicles (Chevy Malibu, Honda Accord, Tesla Model 3 and Toyota Camry) concluding that the technology usually doesn't prevent collisions with pedestrians.
What is needed is comprehensive testing by independent authorities so consumers can inform themselves about which ADAS features actually do what their name implies. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has begun testing vehicles that offer AEB with pedestrian detection. They need to go much further and test other ADAS features. And more importantly, carmakers need to stop introducing safety features that either don't work or work poorly.
Cordially,
Paul Hansen
Editor