Experts say you shouldn't rely on your car to drive for you.
Sorry, your car will never drive you around.
Some automakers like Tesla say that driver-assist technologies like Autopilot aren’t meant to be used without close human supervision. But Americans may not be getting that message. A new study shows that drivers who use driver-assist features often view their vehicles as fully self-driving.
“These applications still require people to keep their eyes on the road and their hands ready to take control of the wheel, just as we have done for decades with traditional cruise control,” Stan Caldwell, a professor of transportation and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University, told Lifewire in an email interview.
Some drivers seem to think they’re on a bus when they’re using assistive technologies. Cadillac Super Cruise, Nissan/Infiniti ProPILOT Assist and Tesla Autopilot drivers said they were more likely to engage in non-driving activities like eating or texting while using their partial automation systems than when driving without assistance, according to the study by the industry trade group Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. And 53 percent of Super Cruise users, 42 percent of Autopilot users and 12 percent of ProPILOT Assist users said they were comfortable treating their vehicles as fully self-driving.
