As Safety Tech Advances, Crash Rates and Insurance Claims Retreat
Advanced safety systems — and all the beeping, buzzing, flashing and sometimes aggressive lane corrections that come with them — are apparently working. As safety and driver assistance systems become more sophisticated, so too do their ability to prevent crashes and make drivers safer.
That’s according to a new study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s Highway Loss Data Institute, which looked at BMW models equipped with various combinations of forward collision warning, automatic emergency braking, adaptive cruise control and other driver assistance technologies. Some systems worked better than others, however, and the use of some even corresponded to an increase in collision claim rates, according to the study.
Related: Studies Find Lane Departure, Blind Spot Warning Systems Work
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In the study, HLDI compared insurance claims data from tens of thousands of model-year 2013-17 BMW vehicles equipped with one of four different crash avoidance packages. The first type of package is basic, and combined forward collision warning with lane departure warning. Researchers saw an increase in damage and injury claims related to this equipment: a 2% increase in the frequency of collision claims, a 5% increase in the frequency of property damage claims and an 11% increase in the frequency of bodily injury claims.
The other packages, however, decreased injury and damage claims. The second system built on the alerts package and added automatic emergency braking, which translated to a 5% reduction in the frequency of collision claims, an 11% reduction in the frequency of property damage claims and a 16% reduction in the frequency of bodily injury claims.
The third package — the Driving Assistance Package — added adaptive cruise control as well as upgraded versions of the prior features. It was shown to reduce collision, property damage and bodily injury claim rates by 6%, 27% and 37%, respectively.
The last package evaluated, the Driving Assistance Plus Package, added lane centering and front cross-traffic alert systems. It had a similar effect as the regular Driving Assistance Package, leaving researchers to question the effectiveness of lane centering and front cross-traffic alert systems.
“The crash claim frequency reductions for BMW’s Driving Assistance Package are the largest we’ve seen from advanced driver assistance systems, which suggests crash avoidance may be delivering bigger benefits as the technology improves,” Matt Moore, senior vice president of HLDI said in a statement. “The lane centering that comes in the Plus package doesn’t seem to augment these benefits. That may be because the system is only intended for use on freeways, which are comparatively safer than other roads, and only works when the driver switches it on.”
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