Observed activation status of lane departure warning and forward collision warning of Honda vehicles at dealership service centers

ABSTRACT

Objective: There are little objective data on whether drivers with lane departure warning and forward collision warning systems actually use them, but self-report data indicate that lane departure warning may be used less and viewed less favorably than forward collision warning. The current study assessed whether the systems were turned on when drivers brought their vehicles to dealership service stations and whether the observational protocol is a feasible method for collecting similar data on various manufacturers' systems.

Methods: Observations of 2013–2015 Honda Accords, 2014–2015 Odysseys, and 2015 CR-Vs occurred at 2 U.S. Honda dealerships for approximately 4 weeks during Summer 2015.

Results: Of the 265 vehicles observed to have the 2 systems, 87 (32.8%) had lane departure warning turned on. Accords were associated with a 66% increase in the likelihood that lane departure warning was turned on compared with Odysseys, but the rate was still only about 40% in Accords. In contrast, forward collision warning was turned on in all but one of the observed vehicles.

Conclusions: Observations found that the activation rate was much higher for forward collision warning than lane departure warning. The observation method worked well and appears feasible for extending to other manufacturers.

KEYWORDS:

• Crash avoidance technologies
• lane departure warning
• forward collision warning
• driver use and acceptance of technology

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Hideki Suzuki and Lance Woelfer of Honda Motor Corporation who provided information about the functioning of the systems and identified potential dealerships to participate in the study. The authors also are grateful to Kevin Szot, Warren Jacobs, and Lester Abel at Criswell Honda in Germantown, Maryland, and to Joe Waldman and Larry Shifflett at Landmark Honda in Alexandria, Virginia, for the access they provided to service departments during the data collection process. The authors also thank our colleagues Myles Wilson and David Aylor at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, who provided further specifics about the studied systems and comments on the article. Finally, the authors thank Biniyam Meresa and Jose Villa for their efforts in collecting the data.

Funding

This work was supported solely by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.