Different names for car safety systems a hazard: US group

DETROIT - A coalition of American automotive safety groups is calling for standardised names for car-safety systems to avoid situations which may be detrimental to safety.

The coalition includes leading consumer guide Consumer Reports, customer satisfaction survey company JD Power and the United States National Safety Council.

They are of the view that manufacturers have taken a marketing approach to naming the features in their vehicles, which is creating confusion among consumers.

For instance, Toyota has Pre-Collision System, Full-Speed Range Dynamic Radar Cruise Control and Lane Tracing Assist, while Chevrolet calls the same type of systems by completely different names with Forward Collision Alert, Adaptive Cruise Control and Lane Change Alert with Side Blind Zone Alert.

Mr Ashwin Kekre, a board member of the US Highway Loss Data Institute, a non-profit organisation that focuses on vehicle safety, says: "A lot of them can even have names like Autopilot (popularised by Tesla), which can be misleading.

"Trying to come up with some common nomenclature can help. What is Smart Grade (John Deere) versus City Safety (Volvo) versus automatic braking versus Honda Sensing? It can be very hard for the consumer to even understand what the car has and what it really does."

The coalition has come up with standardised names for tech safety systems that were endorsed by the US Department of Transportation in January 2020. It hopes automakers, journalists and other organisations will adopt them to reduce confusion.

And it is not just the names that can confuse people. Sometimes, the actual technology confuses people too, especially features such as lane departure warning and adaptive cruise control.

While lane departure warning, sometimes called Lane Assist, seems straightforward, how it behaves and what it expects the driver to do can be more alarming than helpful.

If you are driving around a corner and your lane departure warning alerts, what are you supposed to do? What is the correct action to take? Every situation is different and not every driver has been taught the correct response.

When driving in a straight line on a highway, lane departure can provide valuable assistance. But not every system behaves the same way. Some cars just alert the driver that they are crossing the line with a sound or a visual cue.

Other cars will automatically steer the car back into the centre of the lane, whether you want it to or not. If you are passing a cyclist on the side of the road or trying to avoid an animal, this automatic steering can feel like a dangerous intervention.

Another promising technology that can confuse drivers is adaptive cruise control, which also goes by names such as automatic, active, radar and intelligent cruise control. Cars equipped with this technology use radar sensors and cameras to monitor your speed and distance from other vehicles.

It sounds great, particularly when you are headed on the road for a long trip.

The trouble comes when you are not quite sure how to set it.

Senior vice-president Matt Moore of the Highway Loss Data Institute says this feature "often can make a person uncomfortable".

University of Utah's cognitive neuroscientist David Strayer says while adaptive cruise control is a promising safety feature, there are plenty of anecdotes of it going very wrong.

He adds: "If you're following a car and it takes an exit, all of a sudden, your car accelerates. In fact, some of the unintended accelerations that people report are just because they programmed the car to go 50 miles an hour (80kmh) and they've been following a car for 20 miles (32km). And when that car changes lanes, all of a sudden, your car accelerates and it's like, whoa, what's going on?

"And it's because you programmed it, but you just didn't remember programming it."

The experts suggest that car owners read the car manual.

"Make an effort to educate yourself about the vehicle and the things it can do and can't do," says Mr Moore.

Mr Kekre agrees, saying drivers need to understand their responsibilities and not rely on the tech to do too much on their behalf.

Motorists should also learn how different safety features alert them. Alerts can be audible, visual or haptic (just as vibrating steering wheel or seat). Most of these settings are customisable and can be switched off and on.

The current landscape of car tech and advanced safety systems might be a little confusing and, sometimes, distracting, but it is also extremely promising, experts say. Some safety features, such as front collision and automatic braking, are already reducing accidents by significant numbers.

In fact, in the future, people could see car accidents reduced to zero, thanks to more advanced safety technologies.