Fleet drivers need guidance to correctly use advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) or risk the technology being counterproductive, the Association of Fleet Professionals (AFP) has said.
Members of the industry body are reporting that the devices – including automatic emergency braking, lane keeping assist and adaptive cruise control – can lead to a problematic “lazy” style of driving and an overreliance on the technology.
Lorna McAtear, AFP vice chair and head of fleet at National Grid said her experience showed ADAS was often being used incorrectly by drivers.
“We are potentially deskilling drivers by encouraging them to rely on ADAS but this is a misunderstanding of how the technology is intended to work,” she said.
“It is designed to act as a limited driving aid or an emergency safety net, not to take responsibility for aspects of driving.
“Increasingly, we are seeing situations where the driver blames the car for errors that caused accidents – arguing either the technology should have stopped the incident or indeed, that ADAS actively caused it. Sometimes, of course, this is just shifting the blame but in other cases, the driver appears to have completely misunderstood how the devices operate.
“A key issue is that ADAS works differently from car to car. Adaptive cruise control, for example, is implemented in distinct ways by each manufacturer, while the degree of pressure on the steering wheel applied by lane departure ranges from gentle to genuinely aggressive. Drivers understandably find this confusing.”
Lorna added: “There’s no doubt some of this technology is useful and effective but we need to develop a greater understanding of how to help drivers integrate it into their existing driving style. ADAS has been introduced with limited guidance about how those who created it thought it should be used in everyday driving.”
