The Danger of Vehicle Automation

Incorrect or incomplete understanding of vehicle automation is detrimental to safety. Evidence shows that drivers with limited or flawed mental models are in fact more at risk of misusing vehicle automation, and, in turn, road collision.

Watch Dr. Biondi’s talk to find out about the Human Factors issues of misusing vehicle automation.

Yet another case of vehicle automation misuse!

Unfortunately, this will not sound like a news to many (me included.). But yet another Tesla driver was caught napping behind the wheel of a semi-autonomous vehicle in Edmonton, Alberta.

How come this isn’t news you ask? Well, there are now countless examples of erratic, unsafe drivers blatantly misusing (and abusing) vehicle automation.

The National Transportation Safety Boards’ investigations following a handful of fatal and nonfatal collisions involving Tesla Autopilot reported that driver’s inattention and over-reliance on the system, coupled with system’s operational design contributed to these collisions.

Also, this summer, German regulators ruled that the Autopilot name is misleading motorists to believe that Autopilot is in fact an auto-pilot .. which is not.

Efforts from the American Automobile Association and others have recently contributed to the development of a naming convention for semi-autonomous systems that hopes to help consumers make educated decisions when purchasing a vehicle, and reduce the likelihood of misusing its systems.

Much has been done thus far to promote a safe adoption of these systems. My research and others’ have contributed to better understand how Human Factors affect driver’s adoption of autonomous and semi-autonomous systems. Transportation agencies and road safety stakeholders are too pushing for safe regulations. But much more needs to be done.

References

Biondi et al. (2018).80 MPH and out-of-the-loop: Effects of real-world semi-automated driving on driver workload and arousal https://doi.org/10.1177/1541931218621427

CBC (2020). Speeding Tesla driver caught napping behind the wheel on Alberta highway https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/tesla-driver-napping-alberta-speeding-1.5727828

Credit: CBC

The Danger of ADAS webinar series

On Septembers 30th, 2020, I will be the guest speaker in iNAGO’s Intelligent Assistant webinar series on the topic of The Danger of ADAS.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that 94% of serious crashes are due to human error (NHTSA, nd). While advanced driver assistance systems are designed to minimize the impact of human error on safety, recent evidence suggest that lacking understanding of these systems, and the over-trust resulting from it, may contribute to drivers misusing ADAS and engaging in potentially dangerous behaviors (NTSB, 2020).

The webinar will cover:

• Understanding ADAS and its role on driver safety

• How connected vehicles can be safer by making drivers more knowledgeable

• Demonstration of a conversational assistant-driven car feature information system

• User Study results on the use of in-car knowledge assistants by Human Systems Lab

• Live Q&A with Dr. Biondi and Ron DiCarlantonio

Reserve your virtual seat HERE

Distracted driving uptick since the COVID-19 lockdown

A recent study published by ZenDrive shows an uptick in distracted driving and speeding since the beginning of the COVID-19 lockdown in March.

While this is not surprising per se, there may be two important factors determining this.

First, with possibly fewer cars on the road, some motorists may feel like they can take more risks, and, perhaps, convinced of the lower police presence, they are less at risk of being caught.

The second and frankly more disturbing contributor is remote working. As suggested in the ZenDrive report, the ‘mass migration’ to remote working and virtual conferencing has made us even more dependent to communication technology. This, possibly combined with the difficulty to distinguish between work and leisure time during remote working, may have made motorists more inclined to attend work meeting while driving.

Altogether, this evidence suggest that distracted driving may have gotten worse since the beginning of the COVID-19 lockdown in March.

2018 Uber-Volvo’s Fatal Collision: Distraction and System Failure

Remember the 2018 Uber-Volvo’s fatal collision?

In the first-ever fatal accident involving a self-driving/fully-autonomous vehicle, the autonomous vehicle’s sensors failed to detect a pedestrian. The safety driver too failed to detect or react to the pedestrian leading to the collision. The investigation conducted by the National Transportation Safety Board determined that the driver was distracted at the time of the collision.

This unfortunate event is a reminder that, even in the era of autonomous/self-driving cars, Human Factors like human error and distracted driving still play important roles in determining safe and effective human-vehicle interactions.

#HumanFactors #Distraction

Reference

New York Times (2020). Driver Charged in Uber’s Fatal 2018 Autonomous Car Crash. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/15/technology/uber-autonomous-crash-driver-charged.html