10,000 automobile deaths could be prevented each year by tech that already exists
In the United States each year, 3.9 million people are injured in auto accidents and about 33,000 are killed, but according to a new analysis from The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), nearly a third of those deaths could be prevented by technologies that already exists but are not widely used.
BCG, in collaboration with the Motor & Equipment Manufactures Association, looked many advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) already on the market: forward collision warning/assist/adaptive cruise control, blind spot detection, night vision, land departure warning/lane keep assist, adaptive front lighting, surround view cameras, and park assist features.
BCG’s analysis, “A Roadmap to Safer Driving,’’ concluded these safety precautions significantly reduce accidents, injuries, and deaths, and the monetary costs all of those have on society.
ADAS technologies are widely available in new cars, but they rarely come standard and they’re expensive enough that drivers aren’t buying them to be installed in their cars.
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Here are the IIHS Top Safety Picks for 2015:
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BCG noted that many accidents are caused by a driver error and that ADAS technologies have a strong impact on preventing such mistakes.
Because of this, BCG concluded that 9,900 deaths each year in the United States could be prevented if every vehicle on the road had ADAS technologies.
But according to the analysis, ADAS technologies are only growing 2 to 5 percent in their share of the market each year.
“Because the vast majority of crashes in the United States are caused by driver error, the lack of adoption of these technologies within the U.S. fleet is a significant missed opportunity,’’ said Xavier Mosquet, North America leader of BCG’s automotive practice and a coauthor of the study. “This is especially true considering that ADAS technologies also pave the way for partially and fully autonomous vehicles, which could further reduce crashes—and their cost to society—by 90 percent or more.’’
Though autonomous vehicles are not a reality yet, Edmunds notes that there are vehicles currently on the market, such as the 2015-16 Honda CR-V, 2016 Hyundai Sonata, and the 2016 Chevrolet Impala, hat offer many of these ADAS technologies or have them available as upgrades.
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