Almost nine out of 10 drivers of vehicles equipped with lane departure warning and prevention systems now keep them switched on, a new study from the (IIHS) has revealed.
The survey also showed seven out of 10 drivers of vehicles that give visual alerts when they exceed the speed limit also keep that feature running.
“These results hint at a growing awareness that crash avoidance systems and other technologies can improve safety,” said IIHS President David Harkey.
“They also indicate that automakers’ efforts to increase usage rates have been a success.”
The IIHS said lane departure warning and prevention systems could address as many as 23 per cent of fatal crashes involving passenger vehicles. However, so far they haven’t had the same dramatic effects on insurance claims and police-reported crashes as forward collision warning and automatic emergency braking (AEB).
The organization said this was partly because front-to-rear crashes — especially minor ones — are much more common than the sideswipe, head-on and run-off-road crashes that lane departure systems address. But add that the effectiveness may also have been limited initially because many drivers found lane departure alerts annoying and switched them off. By and large, automakers have solved that problem, the new study shows.
Among nearly 2,400 vehicles of various makes that were brought to dealerships in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area for service, IIHS researchers found that lane departure warning and prevention systems were activated in 87 per cent. In contrast, only 51 per cent of vehicles in a similar study conducted eight years ago had any kind of lane maintenance system activated.
The new study found that systems that are activated and deactivated through the in-vehicle settings menu, rather than a button, were more likely to be switched on. Seven years ago, only one of the observed models was designed that way, while a little more than half of vehicles in the new sample were.
