Curves in the road are posing a challenge to advanced driver assistance features like adaptive cruise control (ACC) and more sophisticated partial automation systems, limiting their potential safety benefits, a new study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found.
ACC and more advanced partial automation that combines ACC with lane centering are often disabled on some of the sharper curves present on limited-access roadways, either because drivers switch the features off or they deactivate automatically.
Analyzing the data, the researchers found that ACC or Pilot Assist were less likely to be active as curves became sharper. In the Evoque vehicles, drivers were 72 percent less likely to use ACC on the sharpest category of curves (those with a radius smaller than 2,292 feet) than they were to use those features on straight road segments. In the S90 vehicles, drivers were 75 percent less likely to use Pilot Assist and 66 percent less likely to use ACC on the sharpest curves.
Read the article at IIHS.
