John Williamson: Are car safety improvements making drivers more complacent?

A driver concentrates on the road ahead. Let's hope increasingly safer cars do not take away from our need to concentrate and to be good drivers, says John Williamson. Photo / Getty Images

ON THE ROAD

I was a university student in the late 1960s. Back then many students had cars to get around, and in our flat of five students we had five cars. We took turns in driving out to Massey and the favourite was a 1928 Model A.

There was a real pleasure in climbing into the back seat, above the rest of the traffic - much like the modern SUV, and chugging up the Massey hill.

You had to drive that car. The steering wheel had a bit of play and you needed to stick your arm out the window to indicate turning right.

The car had no safety features but was built like a tank and had plenty of visibility.

The windscreen wipers were a bit temperamental, you couldn't drive to the open road speed limit but there was a real pleasure in travelling leisurely around the country in the Model A.

I can understand the sense of satisfaction that vintage car enthusiasts get from restoring and driving old cars. These cars do nothing by themselves, you really have to drive them.

This raises the question about increasing safety features in modern cars and whether these features make for better drivers.

In 1908, two psychologists described a paradox which became known as the Yerkes-Dodson law. This describes the relationship between arousal and performance.

Give people too little to pay attention to and they become complacent. Give them too much and they become overwhelmed.

In automotive terms this means that drivers are at their best when paying attention to their surroundings but aren't flummoxed.

This is important because as automakers pack their cars with more and more safety technology, like adaptive cruise control and automatic braking, driving a car becomes easier and easier.

We are essentially given less to pay attention to, while our cars are watching over us.

The best example I have is when we drive up a corrugated local road hill to a family member's place.

My wife has a 1996 Suzuki Vitara which she loves, but safety features are limited. It performs like a mountain goat on high country tracks but in bouncing from corrugation to corrugation you really need to concentrate.

I have a 2015 model with electronic stability control and can confidently drive the corrugations. I could easily become complacent and get into trouble driving the Vitara.

There is no doubt modern vehicles are much safer than their counterparts of a couple of generations ago.

The biggest improvements came in the mid-60s with the wide adoption of seat belts and collapsible steering columns.

Over the years we've had airbags, ABS brakes, electronic stability control and a range of design features that reduce the damage to drivers and passengers when an accident does occur.

Safety systems are now moving towards reducing the risk of accidents occurring with the development of semi autonomous technology.

Adaptive cruise control ensures that your car slows with traffic and lane departure warning technology tells you when you have strayed over the line.

The notion of self-driving cars is well advanced.

The issue here however, is that humans zone out when their full attention is not needed.

As self-driving cars improve and humans intervene less, driver inattention and the associated problem of quickly re-engaging to respond, become even greater problems.

We become complacent in our need to concentrate while driving, at our peril. This is reinforced when we have a close call. Then we are scared witless, shaken and shocked into the recognition of our own inattention, when we have just avoided a crash.

Most in-car safety systems are there to save us when we make a mistake. We don't have to engage with them and we don't know they are there.

That's not the case with seat belts. The oldest and most effective safety device that we have and we still need to engage with it.

"Make it click" is as relevant today as it was 50 years ago and we need to consciously do it.

Let's hope that increasingly safer cars do not take away from our need to concentrate and to be good drivers.

• John Williamson is chairman of Roadsafe Northland and Northland Road Safety Trust, a former national councillor for NZ Automobile Association and former Whangārei District Council member.