Forgive me if this has been covered before but I am only just entering the world of 21st century motoring.
Our 'new' car has a range of safety features including devices that attempt to stop you colliding with the car in front, or one that cuts in on you, when you have cruise control on and that can do things like take over the steering temporarily if you drift out of lane on a multi-carriageway. All well and good I guess - as far as I can tell they seem to work and I was assured you can turn them off if you want.
But what would be the insurance position if you were unlucky enough to be involved in an accident on a motorway, say, and investigators found that your collision avoidance systems were turned off at the time?
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Most collision avoidance systems are designed to work at lower speeds and not motorway speeds aren't they? Like monitoring the car in front, maybe checking for pedestrians. They turn off at higher speed.
On motorways you then do have cars with adaptive cruise control which maintain distance and will brake for you. And then there's systems to monitor the blind spot and alert you of a car you might not have seen. And there's lane keep assist to keep you in lane.
Since these are mostly optional on most cars I cannot see how having them off impacts insurance. It would be more interesting to see a case where someone has an accident and blames the car for not avoiding it when the systems were on.
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Mike's Honda has ADAS, which is the motorway speed adaptive cruise system (and LKA). It turns off at about 19 mph as you slow down.
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Yes, that's the one. At low speed you just get the parking assist bleepers and a diagram to show which one it is telling you you are close to something. Also, when you engage reverse to park the offside mirror dips to show the back corner. This morning, when it started raining the windscreen wipers came on by themselves and seemed to adapt themselves perfectly to the amount of precipitation. I think the car has daytime running lights but it objects when I try to get out with the engine running so I'm not sure.
This is one very steep learning curve...
What I intended in the original question was 'would an insurance company deduct a percentage from a settlement because safety devices were not in use'.
Last edited by: Mike Hannon on Tue 19 Mar 13 at 14:49
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"What I intended in the original question was 'would an insurance company deduct a percentage from a settlement because safety devices were not in use'."
Contributory negligence similar to failing to wear a seat belt you mean? I would very much doubt it. There is no legal obligation to have these devices and I don't see how you could be be deemed negligent for not using something which you are not obliged to have anyway.
That would be a bit like saying it partly your fault that you hurt your knee falling over a raised paving slab because you weren't wearing knee cap protectors.
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"What I intended in the original question was 'would an insurance company deduct a percentage from a settlement because safety devices were not in use'."
If you had disabled a system which was not designed to be switched off, then yes it would be an issue.
If you had merely switched system off then it would be unlikely but may depend.
i.e. some cars allow you to switch off the passenger airbag. If the passenger had turned off that airbag and then wanted to claim for injuries sustained in a subsequent accident, then it may be relevant from a contributory perspective.
As far as I am aware there has been no consideration of the newer systems, and so I very much doubt their lack of usage would be relevant at this stage, but it may well become so.
And it would seem reasonable that it does.
If a car has a system to warn you when crossing a white line to avoid you sleeping at the wheel, you then turn this system off, then drive knowing you are tired, then cross the white line when you fall asleep, it would seem to me likely that contributory behaviour is going to raise its head at some point.
However, it is convoluted since the system would need to be turned off by someone who was not otherwise negligent in the accident but was claiming for injuries from that event, in such a way that they could have been reasonably expected to know that such an action would make their injuries worse or more likely.
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Just back from the US and I got a lift in a friends new Accord V6 hybrid. From recent memory it was quite impressive, although I had been in the local micro brewery for 'Happy Hour' 2 till 6pm!
Wonder if it will make its way to UK shores?
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Mike, if and when you have a go with the LKA, I'd be interested to learn where it keeps the car in the lane?
When I last tried an ADAS system in an Accord, it kept well to the left of the lane rather than the middle. That meant overtaking lorries on a motorway was a bit fraught, as it wanted to keep you very close to them on your left and you had to effectively turn it off at each overtake or live with your passenger going very pale and noisy.
But it had only just been invented then, so perhaps that one has been fixed?
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Interesting. The Volvo has city safety which apparently will stop me driving in the back of someone below x speed.
I understood that insurers were starting to offer reductions on models with it fitted as the number of small few hundred quid claims for slow rear end shunts at lights etc should reduce as the technology becomes more commonplace.
No idea if I can turn it off in the Volvo, but not sure why I would want to
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We set off for Ireland and the UK on Thursday so I'll let you know...
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It may come as no surprise but i'm not entirely happy about giving over intelligent control of my vehicle to the machine, no matter how clever the thing is.
I'm thinking of the thousands of variables of open road driving, how do these machines decide what is a valid target for avoidance or not, errant carrier bag, clouted road cone, pheasant, lorry tyre tread, remnants of smashed pallet etc etc.
The competent driver sees one of the above and makes the split second decision to avoid or not, depending on speed and conditions and traffic spacing, we make countless such decisions in our driving lives using our skill experience and risk judgment.
I'm not at all happy that the machine might suddenly decide my ultra modern car needs to emergency brake to avoid something i would have should the road have been empty, but would have simply gone over or avoided it by a swift deviation as it skittered by if surrounded by other traffic in the open road rush.
Trouble is these modern cars will stop very quickly and we know where that could lead if its an overreaction on a busy wet road, possibly to a fully freighted lorry impervious to class leading crash test results coming through the back window or coming straight through the barrier if this happened on the other carriageway.
Last edited by: gordonbennet on Tue 19 Mar 13 at 18:06
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>> Just back from the US and I got a lift in a friends new Accord
>> V6 hybrid. From recent memory it was quite impressive, although I had been in the
>> local micro brewery for 'Happy Hour' 2 till 6pm!
>> Wonder if it will make its way to UK shores?
>>
It's looking doubtful that the UK will have ANY Honda Accord in the future.
www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/uncertain-uk-future-honda-accord
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>> >> Wonder if it will make its way to UK shores?
>> >>
>> It's looking doubtful that the UK will have ANY Honda Accord in the future.
IIRC Honda sells both versions in Australia, with the European model being sold as the premium car.
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Honda Accord UK - Technology and car insurance - rtj70
