IIHS study finds some cars with automatic braking didn’t even slow when approaching dummies wearing reflective strips
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Advanced Driving Assistance Systems (ADAS) designed to increase pedestrian safety might not be able to see clothing designed to increase pedestrian visibility. So says the latest research from the U.S. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).
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A remarkable study saw the IIHS test three cars: a Honda CR-V, Mazda CX-5, and Subaru Forester, all 2023 models and fitted with pedestrian automatic emergency braking systems (AEB). They were pitted against adult-sized dummies wearing four distinctly different forms of outerwear: the first being a simple black sweatshirt and pants; another with a retro-reflective jacket with black sweatpants; then one with the black sweatshirt and sweatpants, both with retro-reflective strips added on the dummy’s limbs and joints; and, finally, one in a white sweatshirt and pants.
The news was not good for the legion of cyclists and roadway workers — not to mention motorcyclists and paranoid pedestrians — who adopt high-vis clothing specifically to be seen by motorists. The test saw all three cars driving 25 miles per hour — 40 kilometres an hour — on dimly lit roads (once with no illumination, then with 10 lux of illumination, and then 20 lux, the British standard for crosswalks).
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Overall, the Honda and the Mazda hit the dummies 84% and 88% of the time, respectively, while the Subaru managed to stop in time all but once. Just as interesting is that while the Honda and Mazda sometimes at least slowed down — both when they had their high-beams on, or with low-beams on but in the more-illuminated 20-lux conditions — neither vehicle “slowed down at all when the dummy was wearing clothing with reflective strips that articulated its limbs.”
It gets worse. When the dummy was dressed in the reflective jacket, the CR-V didn’t slow in any of the trials, regardless of additional roadway lighting, though the CX-5 did manage to slow down more in this case compared with the dummy dressed in plain black in the no-light and 10-lux test. Counter-intuitively, in the 20-lux lighting scenario, the Mazda performed worse with the dummy in the reflective jacket than when it was wearing the black outfit.
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When the dummy was dressed in white, the CR-V didn’t slow at all without added roadway illumination, but notched up its best performances with 10 and 20 lux of added light (it did, however, do better with 10 lux of illumination than with 20 lux).
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Unlike the two other vehicles, the Subaru came to a complete stop without hitting the pedestrian dummy in every trial, except one run in which the dummy was wearing clothing with reflective strips and the roadway was illuminated to 10 lux. However, even in that run, it slowed by more than 80%.
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According to the author of the study, David Kidd, the placement and motion of the reflective strips is supposed to allow drivers to quickly recognize the pattern of movement as a person. “Unfortunately,” said the senior research scientist, “the moving strips didn’t have the same effect for the pedestrian AEB systems we tested and probably confounded their sensors.”
That said, the IIHS says it is unsure why the Honda and Mazda had such trouble recognizing the reflective strips or “how many other systems might have trouble identifying pedestrians wearing this type of clothing.” Whatever the case, the lapse is a concern, and the Institute recommends further research to determine how crash avoidance systems respond to the specific safety equipment used by such workers.
“These results suggest that some automakers need to tweak their pedestrian automatic emergency braking systems,” said IIHS President David Harkey in an unusually frank statement. “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.”
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David Booth
David Booth is Driving’s senior writer as well as the producer of Driving.ca’s Driving into the Future panels and Motor Mouth podcasts. Having written about everything from the exact benefits of Diamond Like Coating (DLC) on motorcycle camshafts to why Range Rovers are the best vehicles for those suffering from opiod-induced constipation, Booth leaves no stone unturned in his quest for automotive veritas. Besides his long tenure with Driving, he was the editor in chief of Autovision magazine for 25 years and his stories has been published in motorcycle magazines around the world including the United States, England, Germany and Australia.
Education
Graduating from Queen Elizabeth High School in 1973, Booth moved to from his Northern Quebec home town of Sept-Iles — also home to Montreal Canadiens great, Guy Carbonneau, by the way — to Ottawa to study Mechanical Engineering at Carleton University where he wrote a thesis on the then burgeoning technology of anti-lock brakes for motorcycles and spent time researching the also then burgeoning use of water tunnels for aerodynamic testing.
Experience
After three years writing for Cycle Canada magazine and another three working for the then oldest magazine in Canada, Canadian Automotive Trade, Booth, along with current Driving writer, Brian Harper, and then Toronto Star contributor, Alex Law, created an automotive editorial services group that supplied road tests, news and service bulletins to what was then called Southam newspapers. When Southam became Postmedia with its purchase by Conrad Black and the subsequent introduction of the National Post, Booth was asked to start up the then Driver’s Edge section which became, as you might suspect, Driving.ca when Postmedia finally moved into the digital age. In the past 41 tears, Booth has tested well over 500 motorcycles, 1,500 passenger cars and pretty much every significant supercar of the last 30 years. His passion — and, by far, his proudest achievement — however is Motor Mouth, his weekly column that, after some 30 years, remains as incisive and opinionated as ever.
Personal
Booth remains an avid sports enthusiast — that should be read fitness freak — whose favourite activities include punching boxing bags until his hands bleed and running ski hills with as little respect for medial meniscus as 65-year-old knees can bear. His underlying passion, however, remains, after all these years, motorcycles. If he’s not in his garage tinkering with his prized 1983 CB1100RC — or resurrecting another one – he’s riding Italy’s famed Stelvio Pass with his beloved — and much-modified — Suzuki V-strom 1000. Booth has been known to accept the occasional mojito from strangers and the apples of his eye are a certain fellow Driving contributor and his son, Matthew, who is Global Vice-President of something but he’s never quite sure what. He welcomes feedback, criticism and suggestions at [email protected]
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