Critical Areas in Advanced Driver Assistance Systems Safety: Point of Sale and Crash Reporting

Automated assistive vehicle technologies vary from simple alerts to partially automated driving tasks that are increasingly available in today’s vehicles. Advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) seek to alert a driver to critical events (e.g., forward collision warning) or even intervene (e.g., emergency braking, lane-keeping steering) to prevent crashes. These technologies, however, are not available equally across the passenger vehicle fleet, nor is there standardization in how they are marketed to potential buyers or demonstrated at point of sale, including by increasingly popular online “dealerships” like Vroom and Carvana. The proliferation of ADAS has also outpaced current crash investigation forms. The current Model Minimum Uniform Crash Criteria includes limited guidance on crash avoidance technologies and most state crash reports do not include ADAS variables. Realizing the full benefit of ADAS relies on salespeople, consumers, and law enforcement understanding their benefits and limitations in improving traffic safety. This project investigated the state of knowledge and current practices on how ADAS technologies are marketed and sold, how ADAS are notated in crash reports, and what existing crash data reveal about ADAS in crash involvement to help illuminate and address gaps in current pre-sale and postcrash ADAS research.