My 2026 doesn't have one.

 

Luckily the active driver attention monitoring isn't equipped to US-spec cars. At least not yet. They still come with the passive driver attention monitoring that they've had for years that will analyze your steering, braking and throttle inputs for signs of fatigue.

 

There's an interesting article from July about these safety systems and their supposed benefits:
https://www.caranddriver.com/feature...how-effective/

I'm not digging into the statistical methods behind these studies to see whether or not they suffer from the age old correlation = causality fallacy but I suspect most of them do. I see two major points of concern when saying "cars with XYZ safety feature resulted in XX% less accidents."

1) Safety feature sets and the cars that they come in are self-selecting. People who are more safety conscious will consider vehicles with safety features at the foremost of their vehicle selection process. Likewise they will be likely to drive with safety in mind perhaps more than the Duke boys in their 72 Challenger.

2) When analyzing accident data in the aggregate - were there any measures taken to determine whether the aforemention safety features were active at the time of an accident? Just because the vehicle has it (as this thread can attest) doesn't mean its on.

Also, some of these systems can definitely be cited as the cause of accidents. Teslas are notorious for their "unpredictable" automatic braking. How is that accounted for?

I'm 100% in favor of informational types of safety features such as blind spot monitoring or cross-traffic assist. Giving the driver more observability of their surroundings is always a good thing. I'm less in favor of technologies that try to take control away from the driver - and giving control of the vehicle over to a computer with no sense of inherent self preservation. In limited cases such as ABS, where the computer control of the direct input of the driver is "enhanced" then thats ok I suppose - but thats about as far as I'm willing to surrender control of my fate.

Eye-tracking and distraction monitoring types of technologies ... they hit a little too close to the "nanny state" side of my brain. When I go on the road, I understand that I am at the mercy of my fellow human beings and their ability and desire to conduct themselves in a safe and orderly fashion - if not for my own sake, but their own (refer to my comment about inherent self-preservation). Individuals all have different sets of risk tolerances and not everyone will agree on what is the right level.

 

This isn't surprising to me as (not just in Europe) your body - yes, the thing your soul is temporarily trapped into and using to produce something on this planet - technically belongs to the State in the sense it is collateral to issue debt (treasury notes) so all these mandates are not only the police state, it's also in their interest to protect their assets. You being dead isn't good for the GDP. That's one of the reasons (not the only reason) why over the decades the mandatory insurance, mandatory seat belts, black boxes, and now cameras on your face are becoming the norm.

 

Ahh I didnt know that. Well then good ! It does show the bloody camera thing on the US configurator though, must be error.

 

This is a fascinating discussion and I’m glad folks are willing to enter into productive conversations and not just typical internet name calling and ignorant opinions.

For my part, I’ll bring a different perspective and set of experience. I worked for quite a few years in the telematics industry and some of this tech has been around for a good number of years in various incarnations and iterations. The applications were for fleet (commercial) vehicles and a company looking to protect their capital investment of the vehicle and for- as stated in other responses- for collisions and proof of actions.

Here is the rub (without going into the diatribe- if not pandemic- of distracted driving) in that it gets into the issue of personal accountability. In the case of what I was doing, it was for vehicles used in a commercial fashion. In other words, not the driver’s machine. So not only would there be cameras facing the driver, but also facing ahead (a la the now very common dash cam). I helped develop an accelerometer based solution measuring certain maneuvers a driver may exhibit and then provide real time feedback via a display on the dash,

The crossover in the case I worked on was where we started working with AAA (in the US) to develop a solution for teen drivers (fully not commercial) to help them learn good driving habits and identify mistakes. This is key when going back to the accountability question. Some implementations of solutions like this are after the fact, some are real time and can foster “training”. But this depends on your perspective. With the wrong frame of mind, many of these tools can be viewed as intrusive into personal freedom. They can also be viewed as crutches shoring up the gaps in training or understanding. In the commercial world, it ain’t your junk, so your opinion doesn’t mean much until you start paying the bills. For Joe Public, it can end up being a way to bait other drivers or hide behind technology as opposed to being accountable for a lack of skill or focus on the task at hand.

As with many other aspects of society, the introduction of “tools” such as this identify underlying concerns of training and understanding and responsibility when engaging in an activity in my opinion. I don’t have the answer, and lean to the side of less is more on tech like this for me personally, but that is coloring from the guy who is addicted to adaptive cruise control in one of my cars.