Drivers are open to prompts to make them safer drivers, according to a recent survey from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).
The report published earlier this year found more than 60 percent of drivers would find it acceptable if their vehicle provided an audible and visual warning when they exceeded the posted speed limit. And about half of drivers say they wouldn’t mind vehicle technology that makes the accelerator pedal harder to press or automatically restricts speed.
“These findings are exciting because they suggest American drivers are willing to change how they drive to make our roads safer,” IIHS President David Harkey said in a statement released with the survey. “The conventional wisdom has always been that speed-restricting technology would never fly in our car-centric culture.”
Surveying Drivers
IIHS survey looked to gauge the reaction of U.S. drivers in regards to intelligent speed assistance (ISA). IIHS officials noted ISA systems use GPS and a speed limit database, sometimes together with cameras capable of reading posted signs, to identify and adapt to the actual speed limit. The little icon with the local speed limit that pops up in the corner of the Apple Maps, Google Maps and Waze apps is a simple version.
IIHS Senior Research Scientist Ian Reagan, who designed the survey about ISA stated “With the technologies we have now, we could stop virtually all speeding and eliminate speeding tickets to boot. Instead, we seem to be going the opposite direction, with adaptive cruise control and partial automation systems that allow drivers to peg their speed at 90 mph if they want.”
To gain more insight into how American drivers would feel about ISA, Reagan conducted a survey of 1,802 drivers. Drivers of all types were randomly assigned to three groups. One group was asked about ISA that provides an advisory warning, another about ISA that makes the accelerator harder to press, and a third about ISA that restricts acceleration when the vehicle exceeds the speed limit.
Digital Speed Display
Regardless of group, more than 80 percent of all drivers agreed or strongly agreed that they would want a feature that displayed the current speed limit. More than 70 percent of all drivers also agreed or strongly agreed that they would want an unobtrusive tone to sound when the speed limit changes with a strong preference for advisory systems over those that intervene to control the vehicle’s speed.
Nearly 60 percent of drivers in the advisory-only group agreed it would be acceptable if the ISA system came on automatically at the beginning of every trip, compared with 51 percent of drivers in the accelerator-feedback group and 48% of drivers in the speed-limiter group.
Likewise, 65 percent of respondents want their next car to have ISA if most other vehicles had it. Similar proportions said it would be a good idea for ISA to be required in all new cars.
ISA Wanted
Around 70 percent of drivers in all groups agreed they would want ISA in their next car if their insurance company lowered their premiums based on evidence that they don’t speed.
The percentages who agreed that ISA would be acceptable to them also increased across all groups if the feature intervened at 10 mph over the posted limit, compared with 1-2 mph over. Nearly 80 percent of the advisory-only group and more than half of the other two groups said the feature would be acceptable if it had a 10 mph tolerance.
Frequent speeders were 20% less likely to accept ISA than occasional or rare speeders, suggesting those who need it most might use it the least. However, the two groups were about equally likely to say they would keep the feature switched on if their vehicle had it.
Overall, about half of the drivers in the accelerator-feedback and speed-limiter groups said they would frequently override the feature.
“This technology enables nuanced interventions that were never possible in the past,” Harkey said. “The next challenge is to encourage automakers and drivers to embrace it so we can begin saving lives.”