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Drivers need an education for new car technology

 
A Toyota employee drives an automated driving test vehicle. 
A Toyota employee drives an automated driving test vehicle. 
Published Oct. 7, 2015

Many Americans are baffled by safety technology in new cars. Some features will automatically turn a car back into its lane if it begins to drift, or hit the brakes if sensors detect that it's about to rear-end someone. There are lane-change and blind-spot monitors, drowsiness alerts and cars that can park themselves. Adaptive cruise control, tire-pressure indicators and rear-view cameras have become more common.

The features hold tremendous potential to reduce deaths and injuries by eliminating collisions or mitigating their severity, safety advocates say.

But bewildered drivers sometimes just turn them off, defeating the safety potential.

"If people don't understand how that works or what the car is doing, it may startle them or make them uncomfortable," said Deborah Hersman, president of the National Safety Council. "We want to make sure we're explaining things to people so that the technology that can make them safer is actually taken advantage of."

The council and the University of Iowa, with the DOT, are kicking off an education campaign to inform drivers on how the safety features work. The effort includes a website, MyCarDoesWhat.org, with videos.

Some manufacturers offer CDs or DVDs on how to use safety systems, but "most of the time drivers don't actually take the time to review them," said Peter Kissinger, president of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.

A study by the foundation of early safety technology adopters found that some drivers believed collision warning systems would brake to stop their vehicles for them, when actually the systems only alert drivers to an impending collision. It's still up to the driver to hit the brakes.

"That's a dangerous scenario," Kissinger said.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has said it has reached voluntary agreements with 10 automakers to make automatic braking standard in their cars, although there is no timeline.