Today’s drivers are never alone. Our cars are increasingly equipped with assistance systems that offer feedback, some working silently in the background and others fighting for our attention. While these systems largely help the driver and even save lives, the challenge lies in creating convenient and unobtrusive systems that don’t divert our attention from the road or create safety issues. Identifying where the line is between driver distraction and driver assistance can be difficult. This is why it’s important to understand how each technology interacts with the driver, the purpose of the technology and the potential consequences of adding a certain feature to a vehicle’s driver assistance system. Failing to do any one of these steps could lead to much worse outcomes than simply customer dissatisfaction, potentially threatening passenger safety and causing irreparable damage to automakers.
Just because we have the technology to do something, doesn’t mean it’s going to make the driver experience better. As an industry, we need to take a holistic approach to driver assistance systems, examining each feature in light of the entire driver experience. So, below, we examine these systems before we offer some important advice on implementing them.
Driver assistance systems have been around since the early 1970s, when we saw the first anti-lock braking system (ABS). This was followed by traction control systems (TCS), electronic stability control (ESC) and adaptive cruise control (ACC) in the 1980s and 1990s. In the last decade, assistance systems began to help with steering via lane keeping assistance systems (LKAS) and collision avoidance systems (CAS). And now, parking assist systems can take over the steering wheel and override the throttle and brakes.
While these systems have evolved, so have display features – the classic dashboard with a simple speedometer and dedicated light bulbs used as indications for vital electric functions is long gone. As technology has progressed, more advanced instrument panels have evolved and the displays have grown bigger. Now they are single, large displays behind the steering wheel, with some displays spanning pillar to pillar. But development hasn’t stopped there. Digital cockpits now often combine several displays in the car for a fully immersive information and entertainment experience.
All driver assistant features that either show or tell information can be boiled down into three feedback categories: visual, acoustic or haptic. Let’s take a look.