A new report from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), an industry-funded group working to convince automakers to create safer vehicles, found that drivers using advanced driver assistance systems often treat their cars as fully self-driving, despite manufacturer warnings.
On Tuesday, the group said a survey found regular users of General Motors’ Super Cruise, Nissan and Infiniti’s ProPilot Assist, and Tesla’s Autopilot “said they were more likely to perform non-driving-related activities like eating or texting while using their partial automation systems than while driving unassisted.”
According to the survey, which included 600 active users, 53% of Super Cruise users, 42% of Autopilot users, and 12% of ProPilot Assist users “said that they were comfortable treating their vehicles as fully self-driving.”
About 40% of Autopilot and Super Cruise users report that systems had at some point switched off while driving and would not reactivate due to lockout features that activate when a driver fails to pay attention.
“The big-picture message here is that the early adopters of these systems still have a poor understanding of the technology’s limits,” said IIHS President David Harkey.
Tesla has not responded to requests for comment but has said Autopilot does not make a vehicle autonomous and is intended for use with a fully attentive driver ready to take over operations. General Motors did not immediately comment, but IIHS said advertisements for Super Cruise focus on hands-free capabilities, while Autopilot “implies Tesla’s system is more capable than it really is.”
Nissan said its ProPilot Assist name is “clearly communicating” as a system to aid the driver and “requires hands-on operation.”
The report coincides with 37 investigations from the NHTSA regarding vehicle crashes involving Tesla vehicles using systems like Autopilot. The crashes have resulted in 18 deaths.
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