Study Claims Autonomous Braking is Dangerous

Philip Oakley

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4th October 2019

Research by safety specialists claims autonomous emergency braking (AEB) systems are inadequate placing pedestrians in danger.

The study by the American Automobile Association of America (AAA) alleges vehicles with pedestrian detection systems performed inconsistently in daylight conditions while failing completely at night. This ADAS system was consistently challenged by commonly occurring scenarios, such as a vehicle turning to the right while a pedestrian was crossing the road. Alarmingly, every vehicle the AAA tested was unable to avoid a collision in this situation.

Meanwhile, the association says that the vehicles’ ADAS only identified a pedestrian crossing a road in front of a vehicle 40% of the time at 20mph, while at 30mph most of the systems tested failed to identify the pedestrian altogether. When the systems encountered a child darting from between two parked cars in front of a vehicle traveling at 20mph, a collision occurred 89% of the time.

In general, the AAA says, the cars were ineffective of avoiding a collision when traveling at 30mph under any circumstance. At night, regardless of speed, the systems did not detect an adult pedestrian, let alone react to them.