However, such a lack of attention during this period harmed each participant’s driving performance when the simulated car requested driver intervention. Researchers commented how “vehicular control during the ten seconds immediately after resuming manual driving was generally poor in the case of all participants”. This saw drivers accelerating and braking harshly, as well as “wavering in their lanes”.
In fact, some participants got so heavily distracted during the experiment that they ended up missing several turnings and directions on the pre-designated route. However, it was observed that passengers were keen to encourage the driver to pay attention to the road, telling researchers that they were “acutely aware of the potential distraction they posed to the driver, recognising that the driver was ultimately in control of the vehicle”.
The study was funded by the RAC Foundation, with director Steve Gooding calling for automotive engineers to “develop systems that recognise how people, with all their foibles and fallibilities, are likely to react in the real world with all its distractions”.
“The irony is that whilst fully self-driving cars aim to do away with human input, semi-autonomous vehicles will still demand that people have some control,” he continued. “Unfortunately, this study show[s] that the handover process between human and machine is less than smooth and far from quick, raising serious questions as to whether this sort of intermediate technology will ever become commonplace, let alone safe.”
University of Nottingham Professor and Senior Research Fellow, David R Large, observed that while passengers are typically deemed as ‘distracting’ in manually-driven cars, “[the] study highlighted the distraction that passengers continue to pose inside these vehicles, but also the value they can offer”.
“We observed passengers providing help and assistance to drivers during manual takeovers of the vehicles, and sharing the responsibility of keeping the focus on the road when needed.”
Even with the technology available to us today, it remains a while before we can expect to see fully autonomous machines populating our streets. In May, the outgoing Conservative administration’s Autonomous Vehicles Act reached Royal Assent, paving the way for driverless cars on UK roads as soon as 2026.
One of the stipulations in the new set of laws places legal culpability in the case of an accident firmly on the automotive manufacturer, with the driver instead being deemed as a ‘user-in-charge’ whenever fully autonomous settings are active.
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