Common safety features designed to prevent drivers from backing up into oncoming vehicles or pedestrians often don’t work as intended, a new study has found.
In American Automobile Association (AAA) testing, rear automatic emergency braking (AEB) with cross-traffic detection failed to prevent collisions between a reversing SUV and an oncoming vehicle more than 97 percent of the time.
In half of the cases, the system was unable to prevent the SUV from colliding with a simulated child stationary behind the vehicle.
“These systems are not magic,” said Austin Shivers, a AAA technical engineer who led the study. “You shouldn’t rely on them completely, you should understand how they work.”
AEB uses sensors to detect objects in your car’s path and automatically applies the brakes if you don’t stop after a warning.
Some newer systems also have rear cross-traffic detection, which means they are supposed to detect cars approaching from both sides as you back into the roadway. However, to detect a vehicle, the sensor must recognize the vehicle.
In the first test, the team investigated how well AEB with cross-traffic detection could detect rear traffic when the vehicle was parked next to a large vehicle that obstructed the sensor’s view of oncoming vehicles.
They tested four midsize SUVs: the Hyundai Tucson Hybrid, Lexus RX 350, Mazda CX-30, and Volkswagen Tiguan.
As the SUV backed away from the scene, an inflatable test vehicle approached from the side at 15 mph (24 kph).
Shivers said the AEB system detected a car and automatically applied the brakes in 65 percent of the test drives, but it only prevented a collision in one out of 40 tests. “The results for the cross-traffic scenario were not very good.”
He said all four SUVs ran similarly, but some were slower than others.
“This study is not really about focusing on individual vehicles or comparing performance. The aim is to find out how these systems are faring. ” Shivers said. It was an intentionally difficult test, but it’s a situation most drivers face.
“[The sensors] It doesn’t come into view until the back of the car backs up past the car parked next to it,” Shivers said.
Therefore, drivers must be aware that the rear AEB sensor is located at the rear of the vehicle and cannot be seen through parked cars or other obstacles.
“You have to help them help you. You have to back up a little and pause to give the sensors a chance to recognize the oncoming vehicle,” he said. “It’s no different than how you would reverse if your car wasn’t equipped with rear AEB.”
Could the system be better at recognizing oncoming traffic?
“These are new systems, so it’s inevitable that there will be improvements in the future,” Shivers said. “Our message is not just for the people who are designing these systems, but for industry-specific test standards.”
Breaking Bad?
In the second test, the SUV backed up toward a stationary, child-shaped inflatable target 8 feet (2.4 meters) behind it.
“I expected this to be a fairly straightforward scenario; [for the AEB technology] That’s because it’s designed to detect objects directly behind the vehicle,” Shivers said. “That technology has been around for quite some time…This is the kind of situation where you would expect it to work.”
However, the system only applied the brakes 75% of the time and hit a pedestrian half of the time. Shivers said it’s unclear why the sensors didn’t see the target.
“As far as consumers are concerned, I think these results prove that they still need to drive carefully and take precautions,” he said.
AEB has been proven to reduce backup crashes. According to the US-based Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), cars equipped with rear AEB, rearview cameras, and parking sensors had 78 percent fewer reversing accidents than cars without these technologies. .
“That means three out of four crashes will be eliminated,” said David Eiler, vice president of active safety testing at IIHS. “These are the most common crashes. They’re not serious, but they happen all the time. [for example] When you back out of the supermarket, go back to the car behind you. ”
Even if no one gets hurt in such a minor fender bender, it can be expensive, Eyler said.
“Even 4 to 5 miles per hour (6 to 8 kilometers per hour) can end up causing $5,000 worth of damage,” he said.
Still, you shouldn’t rely on these safety systems to stay safe. They are intended for backup purposes, Eyler said.
“What the manufacturer really designed was [AEB systems] “It’s to get the driver to respond and that’s why you get a warning in the first place,” he said. “Obviously. You should always be aware of your surroundings when backing up.”