Source: Repair Driven News post
WOODCLIFF LAKE, N.J. – Three out of four advanced driver assistance systems packages studied led to reductions in auto claims for 2013-17 BMWs, new IIHS Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI) research has found.
The BMW Forward Alerts package included lane departure and forward collision warnings, but the car would not actually act itself to head off a crash. The Forward Alerts/Automatic Braking package added autobraking to the mix, and the Driving Assistance Package included adaptive cruise control on top of all of that. The Driving Assistance Plus package incorporated these features as well as front cross-traffic warnings and lane centering.
The Driving Assistance package of forward collision and lane departure warnings, autobraking and adaptive cruise control cut property damage claims 27 percent and bodily injury claims 37 percent, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety reported Thursday. Collision claims fell as well, though the six percent reduction found was not deep enough to be statistically significant.
Related post:
Euro NCAP Test: 5 Stars for New BMW 3 Series
The OEM’s Driving Assistance Plus suite produced similar results despite its additional ADAS, according to the IIHS.
The Forward Alerts/Automatic Braking package containing less advanced versions of forward collision warning, lane departure warning and autobraking reduced property damage claims 11 percent, bodily injury claims 16 percent and collision claims 5 percent. All three were statistically significant.
The study captured about 30,000 “insured vehicle years” each for Driving Assistance and Forward Alerts. The Forward Alerts/Autobraking package represented about 550,000 insured vehicle years, while Driving Assistance Plus covered about 120,000 insured vehicle years.
“The large exposure of Driving Assistance Plus makes this study by far the broadest examination of the impact of systems that combine speed control with lane centering on insurance losses,” the IIHS wrote.
Sign up for our weekly email to stay on top of the latest news and insights!
“The crash claim frequency reductions for BMW’s Driving Assistance package are the largest we’ve seen from advanced driver assistance systems, which suggests crash avoidance may be delivering bigger benefits as the technology improves,” HLDI Senior Vice President Matt Moore said in a statement. “The lane centering that comes in the ‘plus’ package doesn’t seem to augment these benefits. That may be because the system is only intended for use on freeways, which are comparatively safer than other roads, and only works when the driver switches it on.”
The Forward Alerts combo of collision and lane departure alerts increased collision claims two percent, boosted property damage claims five percent, and increased bodily injury claims 11 percent. But repairers should not read too much into this result. “None of these results was statistically significant, and they differed from HLDI’s studies of similar systems from other manufacturers,” the IIHS wrote.
The entire post with images can be viewed by clicking HERE.
