A new study carried out by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) reveals that many drivers using advanced driver assistance systems like Tesla Autopilot treat their vehicles as fully self-driving.
The IIHS is an industry-funded group that torchlights automakers to make safer vehicles.
According to the IIHS, regular users of General Motors’ Super Cruise, Nissan/Infiniti ProPILOT Assist and Tesla Autopilot are more likely to perform non-driving-related activities like eating or texting while using their partial automation systems.
The IIHS surveyed 600 active users and found that 53% of Super Cruise, 42% of Autopilot and 12% of ProPILOT Assist owners treated their vehicles as fully self-driving.
According to IIHS President David Harkey, the early adopters of advanced driver assistance systems have a poor understanding of the technology’s limits.
IIHS also faulted the advertisements of these systems, clawimiing that GM’s Super Cruise ad focuses on hands-free capabilities while Tesla Autopilot evokes the name used in passenger airplanes.
