Carmaker warns use of the word ‘Autonomous’ is a danger to UK roads

13 June 2018

Story from NewsPress

The driver must always be in control. Use of the word Autonomous in carmaker marketing and literature is lulling drivers into a false sense of security, Thatcham Research warns

Thatcham Research announces new testing regime to assess functionality of driver assistance systems; misleading names and potentially dangerous functionality to be marked down

Today’s Assisted driving technologies are “not Autonomous systems”, are “still in their infancy and not as robust or as capable as they are declared to be.”

Thatcham Research demonstrates what can happen when a motorist thinks a car can drive itself - an example can be watched here.

Thatcham Research and the ABI (Association of British Insurers) are today issuing an urgent call to carmakers and legislators for greater clarity around the capability of vehicles sold with technology that does more and more driving on behalf of motorists. The call comes in the wake of growing reports of people crashing whilst over-relying on technology which is not yet designed to drive the car independently.

The risks to UK drivers have been outlined in the new ‘Assisted and Automated Driving Definition and Assessment’ paper, which has identified dangerous grey areas associated with some driver support technologies. These include misleading names, like Autopilot and ProPilot, given to systems by carmakers, how and when drivers should take back control of their vehicles and systems which are designed to work in specific situations only (e.g. on motorways) but can also function anywhere.

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