One In Five Drivers Switches Off The Safety Tech Meant To Save Their Lives
Carmakers keep loading new cars with driver aids, but a surprising share of owners never turn the fanciest ones on
- A study found 25.9 percent of car owners don’t use adaptive cruise control.
- Many car owners also don’t like using augmented reality head-up displays.
- Just 27.3 percent of car owners regularly change their car’s driving mode.
https://www.carscoops.com/2026/08/unused-car-features-study/Open linkView original on lemmy.ml
7 replies
How is this 'surprising'? It's distracting crap nobody asked for.
People turn off lane keep assist and emergency stop…can’t imagine why.
I drove my sister’s car and it wouldn’t stop beeping at me. If you get what it considers too close to a line then It will beep. Even if that line is the edge of the road and you’re over a bit to give separation to a lane beside you. If you cross a line then the tone of the beep changes. If it can’t see the lines due to weather or worn paint, it beeps.
Emergency stop has similar issues. Somebody switches lanes in front of you closer than the car likes then it slams on brakes to get that distance back. Two lane road with a curve and there’s a semi in the outside lane. Well the semi goes around the curve first and now your car thinks you’re heading towards a wall, slams on the brakes. That usually happened to me at highway speeds on the sweeping turns found there. That feature is just as likely to get you rear ended as it is to prevent you from rear ending someone.
Edit cause autocorrect flubbed words.
Yeah I want an AB test on whether these actually improve safety in real drivers/conditions. I’m sure they do in the lab. Anti-lock braking systems are another safety feature that I feel like has put me in harm’s way on a rainy day more often than it’s protected me on an icy one.
I rented a newer Camry and the lane assist nearly put me into an accident driving through a construction zone. I had to fight it to stay in my lane.
I turned all of it off once I got home.
The only tech on this list that I've used and enjoyed is the HUD.
My gauge cluster mostly died (only the warning lights still worked) in a previous car and I bought a HUD that just plugged into the OBD 2 port.
It was nice being able to see my speed and RPM without having to look away from the road.
However, while shopping for one, there were plenty that I would consider distracting.
I'm guess I'm officially old. My car doesn't have a single piece of tech listed in this article. I don't even know what an AR HUD in a car would look like or what info it would show.
None of my vehicles have it but my parents do. It’s really just another screen above the wheel on the dashboard. It reflects on the glass and that’s what you actually see. Keeps your eyes closer to the road. It’s noticeable even in direct sunlight and surprisingly not terribly distracting. You can turn it off, or customize it. My parent’s vehicle it changes with mode, like ‘sport’ ditches fuel metrics for an RPM gauge. This image makes it look a lot more opaque/vibrant than it really is.
This feels very futurey, don’t think I’ve seen it irl!!