The slow piecemealing of autonomous technologies started with adaptive cruise control and has expanded into a series of active safety features, and the latest to show a measurable reduction in crashes is Autonomous Emergency Braking.
In a joint study between Euro NCAP and Australia’s ANCAP, AEB was shown to reduce low speed rear-end collisions by 38 percent.
The data was pooled from five European countries plus their pals in Australia, with the biggest safety benefits found at speeds between 30 and 50 KMH. However, AEB at highway and rural speeds around 60 KMH didn’t seem to have any positive or negative affect.
Just as interestingly, the study found that cars fitted with AEB could be more likely to be hit from behind because the system detects and applies the brakes quicker than a human driver, proving the law of unintended consequences once again.
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