Of course plenty of older cars are still on the road, but collision avoidance systems have been on the roads for years and don’t seem to be having significant impact.
Granted, driver behaviors may be getting worse, but going back further and you see significant declines which just stall out around 2009.
Fair, it does seem like the overall statistics don't show this. I'm having trouble squaring this with the data showing that these technologies are preventing accidents.
> Granted, driver behaviors may be getting worse
I wonder whether the top quartile is getting significantly better (thus resulting in the great "crashes avoided" numbers that these technologies claim) while everyone else is getting more distracted with their cell phones, causing an overall increase in the average number of crashes.
It might also be that fatal accidents are much harder for automated driving systems to prevent. They could drastically reduce parking lot fender benders or low speed rear end collisions, but those are ultra low risk.
Someone doing 140+MPH is going to receive minimal benifits from 1/8th of a second of early breaking before hitting a tree. Similarly, losing control on ice and driving off a cliff, or getting hit with a jackknifed semi truck etc.
Of course plenty of older cars are still on the road, but collision avoidance systems have been on the roads for years and don’t seem to be having significant impact.
Granted, driver behaviors may be getting worse, but going back further and you see significant declines which just stall out around 2009.