Driver-Assist Technology Could Yield Big Savings

A four-year, €22 million study in Europe says the region could save billions of dollars by equipping cars and trucks with such technologies as adaptive cruise control, collision warning, speed regulators, blind-spot sensors, lane departure warning and curve speed warning.

The research was conducted by euroFOT, a consortium of 28 carmakers, suppliers, universities and research institutes. The report caps more than 12 months of field tests with 1,000 vehicles.

EuroFOT says driver behavior is responsible for more than 90% of traffic accidents in the 27-member European Union. Equipping vehicles with adaptive cruise control and collision warning systems would decrease injury-causing crashes by about 6% for cars and 1% for trucks.

That reduction also would improve traffic efficiency by eliminating more than three million vehicle-hours of traffic slowdowns. That, in turn, would reduce fleet fuel consumption by about 3% for cars and 2% for trucks.

The study found that about 75% of field test participants like systems that warn them in advance if they are driving too fast to negotiate an upcoming curve. The participants says the more they used such a system, the more they trusted and relied upon it.