In July, the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI) hosted a policy briefing, "Do Smart Cars Equal Safer Roads?" in Washington, D.C., to discuss smart car innovations. The panel discussion was part of the organization's 2014 Capital Engagement Series, and included representatives from PCI, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), KidsandCars.org, the Intelligent Transportation Society of America (ITSA), and Progressive Insurance.
In the context of the panel discussion, what is a "smart car"?
When we're talking about smart cars in the context of making vehicle transportation safer, we're generally talking about systems that assist the driver either by warning him of potentially dangerous situations, or in some cases modifying or taking control of the vehicle to prevent crashes.
The big one that is now required by law in all light vehicles is electronic stability control. That reduces crashes, particularly single-vehicle fatal crashes. Single vehicle rollovers have been reduced by 80 percent or more, but that technology has been around since 2000 or earlier.
What other technologies are emerging that have improved safety?
There are things like front-crash prevention systems that help avoid common front-to-rear crashes. There is adaptive front lighting, which points the headlights in the direction of where you are steering the vehicle.
How have these technologies improved safety?
Front crash prevention systems appear to prevent somewhere between 7 percent and 15 percent of crashes with other vehicles. Headlight improvements are preventing around 7 percent to 10 percent.
Down the road, front crash prevention system are eventually going to be integrated with lane control systems. The idea is that it could work with traffic jam assistance solutions so that you can follow the car in front of you without steering or controlling the speed of the vehicle. Some automatic braking systems are designed to respond to pedestrians or bicyclists in the vehicle's path, which could help survivability in those types of crashes.
How far away are we from having full autonomous vehicles from OEMs?
What we've seen in the marketplace so far are stepping stones to an automatic autonomous vehicle. Most people working on the technology aren't confident that automated driving can handle all of the situations that occur on our roads today. The first implementations we'll see will be automated driving for limited situations like traffic jam assist or interstate driving, where the complexity is lower.
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