Drivers of partially automated vehicles are blamed for crashes that they cannot reasonably avoid

Niek Beckers; Luciano Cavalcante Siebert; Merijn Bruijnes; Catholijn Jonker; David Abbink

doi:10.1038/s41598-022-19876-0

Drivers of partially automated vehicles are blamed for crashes that they cannot reasonably avoid

Niek Beckers^*
, Luciano Cavalcante Siebert^*
, Merijn Bruijnes^*
, Catholijn Jonker
, David Abbink

^*Corresponding author for this work

Delft University of Technology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

People seem to hold the human driver to be primarily responsible when their partially automated vehicle crashes, yet is this reasonable? While the driver is often required to immediately take over from the automation when it fails, placing such high expectations on the driver to remain vigilant in partially automated driving is unreasonable. Drivers show difficulties in taking over control when needed immediately, potentially resulting in dangerous situations. From a normative perspective, it would be reasonable to consider the impact of automation on the driver’s ability to take over control when attributing responsibility for a crash. We, therefore, analyzed whether the public indeed considers driver ability when attributing responsibility to the driver, the vehicle, and its manufacturer. Participants blamed the driver primarily, even though they recognized the driver’s decreased ability to avoid the crash. These results portend undesirable situations in which users of partially driving automation are the ones held responsible, which may be unreasonable due to the detrimental impact of driving automation on human drivers. Lastly, the outcome signals that public awareness of such human-factors issues with automated driving should be improved.

Original language	English
Article number	16193
Number of pages	11
Journal	Scientific Reports
Volume	12
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-19876-0
Publication status	Published - Dec 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This project was funded by AiTech, the initiative for meaningful human control over artificial intelligence, at Delft University of Technology. This research was partially supported by TAILOR, a project funded by EU Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under GA No 952215. This work was partially supported by the European Commission funded project “Humane AI: Toward AI Systems That Augment and Empower Humans by Understanding Us, our Society and the World Around Us” (grant # 820437) and by the National Science Foundation (NWO) Hybrid Intelligence project under Grant No. (1136993). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. The support is gratefully acknowledged.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).

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Cite this

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title = "Drivers of partially automated vehicles are blamed for crashes that they cannot reasonably avoid",

abstract = "People seem to hold the human driver to be primarily responsible when their partially automated vehicle crashes, yet is this reasonable? While the driver is often required to immediately take over from the automation when it fails, placing such high expectations on the driver to remain vigilant in partially automated driving is unreasonable. Drivers show difficulties in taking over control when needed immediately, potentially resulting in dangerous situations. From a normative perspective, it would be reasonable to consider the impact of automation on the driver{\textquoteright}s ability to take over control when attributing responsibility for a crash. We, therefore, analyzed whether the public indeed considers driver ability when attributing responsibility to the driver, the vehicle, and its manufacturer. Participants blamed the driver primarily, even though they recognized the driver{\textquoteright}s decreased ability to avoid the crash. These results portend undesirable situations in which users of partially driving automation are the ones held responsible, which may be unreasonable due to the detrimental impact of driving automation on human drivers. Lastly, the outcome signals that public awareness of such human-factors issues with automated driving should be improved.",

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note = "Funding Information: This project was funded by AiTech, the initiative for meaningful human control over artificial intelligence, at Delft University of Technology. This research was partially supported by TAILOR, a project funded by EU Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under GA No 952215. This work was partially supported by the European Commission funded project “Humane AI: Toward AI Systems That Augment and Empower Humans by Understanding Us, our Society and the World Around Us” (grant \# 820437) and by the National Science Foundation (NWO) Hybrid Intelligence project under Grant No. (1136993). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. The support is gratefully acknowledged. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022, The Author(s).",

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Drivers of partially automated vehicles are blamed for crashes that they cannot reasonably avoid

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