Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) is a fairly common feature in production vehicles from the Honda Civic to the Ford F-150. It’s shown to have a material impact on preventing impacts. But according to new research, some AEB systems may contain worrisome blind spots.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) just released findings from its recent research into the effects of high-visibility clothing – like the reflective gear worn by construction workers and runners – on AEB systems. While reflective clothing can substantially help human drivers spot people on or near the road, especially while driving at night, it seems to have the opposite effect on some AEB systems.
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The IIHS looked at the effects of conspicuous clothing and increased roadway lighting on the 2023 models of the Honda CR-V, Mazda CX-5 and Subaru Forester. The tests involved varying amounts of light and crash test dummies wearing either all white clothing, all black clothing, black clothing with reflective strips on the limbs, or a highly retroreflective jacket.
According to the IIHS, the “CR-V and CX-5 hit the dummy in 84% and 88% of the test runs, respectively, while the Forester avoided a collision in all but one trial. Neither the CR-V nor CX-5 slowed at all when the dummy was wearing clothing with reflective strips that articulated its limbs.”
“These results suggest that some automakers need to tweak their pedestrian automatic emergency braking systems,” said IIHS President David Harkey. “It’s untenable that the clothes that pedestrians, cyclists and roadway workers wear to be safe may make them harder for crash avoidance technology to recognize.”
It’s certainly not ideal for certain types of clothing to confound AEB systems to the point where they don’t work at all. But it’s worth acknowledging that emergency braking technology has helped reduce the rate of pedestrian crashes, regardless of the severity, by 27%.
Still, this is probably something automakers should look into.
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