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'Self-driving' technology doesn't stop car crashing into dummy cyclist five times during safety testing

Subaru says it has improved its EyeSight assisted driving system for 2022, despite it repeatedly failing to detect a simulated cyclist crossing its path

An assisted driving system installed in a Subaru car failed to detect a dummy cyclist during testing by the American Automobile Association.

The Subaru Forester, equipped with the manufacturer's EyeSight driver assist technology did not react to a simulated bicycle rider five times under test conditions, and also failed to detect or slow to avoid a dummy vehicle during a simulated head-on collision, Reuters reports.

The other assisted driving technologies tested, a Tesla Model 3 and Hyundai Santa Fe, both detected and braked to avoid collision with the dummy cyclist crossing their paths.

In another test, all three avoided a dummy vehicle and cyclist travelling in the same direction as their assisted driver technology cars.

Subaru spokesperson Dominick Infante told the new website that the brand would be looking into the AAA test to better understand the methodology, and said he currently does not have a detailed response, but insisted Subaru has improved its EyeSight driving system for the 2022 Forester.

Subaru's EyeSight uses cameras to monitor traffic movement and warns drivers if they sway out of their lane. It also offers pre-collision braking and throttle control and, in some models, cruise control which monitors the vehicle in front and maintains distance by adapting the driver's speed.

All three systems tested failed to avoid head-on collisions with dummy vehicles, prompting the AAA to conclude that current assisted driving technologies do not meet the standard of true autonomous driving.

In the AAA's test, each vehicle was put through four scenarios, including overtaking a dummy car travelling in the same direction as the test vehicle, overtaking a dummy cyclist travelling in the same direction, a 25mph head-on collision course with a dummy car, and avoiding a dummy cyclist crossing their path.

The dummy cyclist travelling in the same direction test and dummy vehicle travelling in the same direction test, were both successfully passed by all three vehicles.

However, the Hyundai and Subaru models did not appear to detect or react to avoid the dummy vehicle in a simulated head-on collision. The AAA said the Tesla Model 3 slowed to 3.2 miles per hour, but still collided with the oncoming dummy car.

Tesla has not commented on the study, while Hyundai said it "is reviewing the findings in AAA's report as part of our ongoing commitment to customer safety."

Dan joined road.cc in 2020, and spent most of his first year (hopefully) keeping you entertained on the live blog. At the start of 2022 he took on the role of news editor. Before joining road.cc, Dan wrote about various sports, including football and boxing for the Daily Express, and covered the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Part of the generation inspired by the 2012 Olympics, Dan has been 'enjoying' life on two wheels ever since and spends his weekends making bonk-induced trips to the petrol stations of the south of England.

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15 comments

Avatar
Runningwolf | 1 year ago
3 likes

Nothing much changes then does it.  We currently have vehicles driven by people who are trying their hardest to kill cyclists because they just do not get that cyclists have as much right on the roads as everone else.  Now we are going to have vehicles that assist people to try their hardest to kill cyclists as the systems do not recognise cyclists in the first place.  I wonder where the law will stand when one of these so called assisted driving system vehicles takes out a cyclist. Will the driver of the said vehicle be able to claim imunity on a technicallity, because the system failed to  see the cyclist in the first place, so therefore by default, the driver of the said vehicle can not be held liable.

Avatar
eburtthebike | 1 year ago
6 likes

Lots of interesting comments, but surely we should be asking how these systems are allowed onto the road, since they clearly are extremely dangerous for vulnerable road users; possibly even worse than humans.  Their use should be banned until they are significantly improved, and I would have thought that the possibility of million dollar law suits would have been sufficient to make the manufacturers extremely careful. 

But then, we know that they are lying, cheating profiteers who happily install test-defeating software in their vehicles, so perhaps I am expecting too much.

Avatar
Dingaling replied to eburtthebike | 1 year ago
2 likes

They are on the road to assist the drivers and not replace them. My Suburu Outback has these systems and the distance control on cruise control works and the breaking assistant does apply the brakes if I get too close to the car in front while driving. These systems were never explained by the dealer or the manual as autonomous systems and I most definitely would not let the car run on to see if it did actually stop in time. The proximity sensors that flash orange lights on the door mirrors when vehicles approach from behind on either side are excellent.

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Griff500 replied to Dingaling | 1 year ago
1 like

Dingaling wrote:

They are on the road to assist the drivers and not replace them. My Suburu Outback has these systems and the distance control on cruise control works and the breaking assistant does apply the brakes if I get too close to the car in front while driving.....

Fine, so your Subaru slows down if it encounters a car ahead, but apparently not a cycle.  How about a motorbike? A horse? A pushchair? A dog?  In what way does a system "assist" the driver, if it can only recognise and correctly respond to a subset of the obsacles a car might reasonably be expected to encounter?  All it does is encourage driver complacency, by placing his reliance on a fallible system.  

Dingaling wrote:

The proximity sensors that flash orange lights on the door mirrors when vehicles approach from behind on either side are excellent.

Presumably this "assists" the driver by removing the need to check his mirrors every 5 seconds as we all should do. (My own experience is somewhat different to yours, I once drove a rental car with this system from Edinburgh to Newcastle and back on the A68, and every time I passed a tree overhanging the road, the system flashed and beeped!)  

Sorry, sometimes doing half a job is worse than doing no job at all.

 

 

Avatar
wtjs replied to eburtthebike | 1 year ago
4 likes

surely we should be asking how these systems are allowed onto the road

Well, they already allow bearded blokes with tattoos all over their arms to drive Audis and BMWs don't they?- and they're 100% guilty when they get up in the morning

Avatar
Rik Mayals unde... replied to wtjs | 1 year ago
3 likes

A.U.D.I.

Another Unskilled Dickhead Inside.

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OldRidgeback replied to eburtthebike | 1 year ago
0 likes

Autonomous vehicle prototypes are already on the road being tested. And in Beijing, they've now started running a number of driverless taxis.

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Rich_cb replied to OldRidgeback | 1 year ago
0 likes

Driverless taxis are also operational in San Francisco and Phoenix.

Although they are limited to specific times and/or areas I believe.

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Sriracha | 1 year ago
1 like

One of the known problems of AI is that it tends to pick up the same biases as it finds within the environment in which it learns.

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chrisonabike replied to Sriracha | 1 year ago
0 likes

Indeed - an instance of a general problem.

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brooksby | 1 year ago
9 likes

Quote:

An assisted driving system installed in a Subaru car failed to detect a dummy cyclist during testing by the American Automobile Association.

So it IS just as good as a human driver!  3

Avatar
OldRidgeback | 1 year ago
4 likes

A robotic car with poor eyesight. You'd think it'd be an Audi or a BMW.

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hawkinspeter replied to OldRidgeback | 1 year ago
5 likes
OldRidgeback wrote:

A robotic car with poor eyesight. You'd think it'd be an Audi or a BMW.

As much as I applaud companies employing people with disabilities, I really think that Mr Magoo shouldn't have been in charge of this project

Avatar
hawkinspeter replied to hawkinspeter | 1 year ago
4 likes
hawkinspeter wrote:
OldRidgeback wrote:

A robotic car with poor eyesight. You'd think it'd be an Audi or a BMW.

As much as I applaud companies employing people with disabilities, I really think that Mr Magoo shouldn't have been in charge of this project

I also think that putting Mr Mole (from Happy Tree Friends) in charge of QA was a mistake

Avatar
chrisonabike replied to hawkinspeter | 1 year ago
6 likes

Mr. Bump was in charge of the safety features.

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