Car Accident Avoidance Systems Do Not Always Work
Fort Lauderdale Car Accident Lawyer Joseph Lipsky reminds is fellow drivers not to rely solely on vehicle safety systems as a way to prevent car accidents. Two recent studies by the American Automobile Association (AAA) found that so-called automated driving systems do not always work as advertised in stopping crashes and avoiding personal injuries and wrongful deaths.
The AAA examined safety systems from a number of vehicle manufacturers by driving more than 4,000 miles in their vehicles and found problems and issues with those vehicles on an average of one malfunction every eight miles. The most frequently seen problems revolved around keeping cars in their own lane of travel and in those vehicles being able to identify and avoid vehicles which were stalled or stopped in front of them, with many of those cars with supposed self-stopping systems actually crashing into a stopped vehicle nearly 66% of the time, at speeds in excess of 20 m.p.h.
In AAA on-road tests, each system had difficulty keeping its cars in its own lane, often times coming dangerously close to another car. Simulated track driving showed all vehicles, even those with self-acclaimed safety awards, were not able to consistently recognize a broken-down vehicle. Other manufacturers’ vehicles were not able to be tested as their systems were only designed to be used on specific roads, like highways divided by guardrails – meaning they are not helpful in many real-world driving situations.