Sep 26, 2021 04:04 AM
https://www.sciencealert.com/study-shows...of-drivers
INTRO: It's something that has long been suspected. Now, we have evidence from a new study – once the Autopilot self-driving tech is enabled on Tesla cars, human drivers tend to pay less attention to what's happening on the road. The study highlights the awkward in-between phase that we're now in: Self-driving tech has become good enough to handle many aspects of staying on the road, but can't be relied upon to take over everything, all of the time.
That is potentially more dangerous than both fully human driving and fully automated driving, because when people get behind the wheel they assume they don't have to give their full attention to every part of the driving experience – as this study shows. "Visual behavior patterns change before and after Autopilot disengagement," write the researchers in their published paper. "Before disengagement, drivers looked less on road and focused more on non-driving related areas compared to after the transition to manual driving."
"The higher proportion of off-road glances before disengagement to manual driving were not compensated by longer glances ahead."
As capable as it is, at the moment Autopilot is unable to drive a car on its own in every scenario. Tesla itself says that Autopilot is "designed to assist you with the most burdensome parts of driving" and that its features still "require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous"... (MORE)
INTRO: It's something that has long been suspected. Now, we have evidence from a new study – once the Autopilot self-driving tech is enabled on Tesla cars, human drivers tend to pay less attention to what's happening on the road. The study highlights the awkward in-between phase that we're now in: Self-driving tech has become good enough to handle many aspects of staying on the road, but can't be relied upon to take over everything, all of the time.
That is potentially more dangerous than both fully human driving and fully automated driving, because when people get behind the wheel they assume they don't have to give their full attention to every part of the driving experience – as this study shows. "Visual behavior patterns change before and after Autopilot disengagement," write the researchers in their published paper. "Before disengagement, drivers looked less on road and focused more on non-driving related areas compared to after the transition to manual driving."
"The higher proportion of off-road glances before disengagement to manual driving were not compensated by longer glances ahead."
As capable as it is, at the moment Autopilot is unable to drive a car on its own in every scenario. Tesla itself says that Autopilot is "designed to assist you with the most burdensome parts of driving" and that its features still "require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous"... (MORE)