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How Do Driver Assistance Systems Affect Transportation Safety?
Presented by:
Jonathan Hall
College of Business
University of Alabama
Wednesday, April 9, 2025
11:00 am-12:15 pm
Taylor-Hibbard Seminar Room (Rm103)
Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS), such as Automatic Emergency Braking, Blind Spot Monitoring, and Lane Keeping Assist, are now common in new vehicles. In theory, these new safety features should reduce automobile crashes. However, these technologies may be ineffective in real-world driving conditions or could encourage riskier driving behavior, offsetting some or all of the anticipated safety benefits. Using 2016 to 2020 crash data from 39 U.S.\ states and national-level fatal crash data, we employ a difference-in-differences approach that compares crashes among vehicles with and without driver assistance systems when exposed to an exogenous change in crash risk: precipitation. Our approach mitigates the risk of selection into vehicles with and without ADAS. We find that ADAS is associated with a 19.1\% reduction in crashes. However, we find a 14.6\% increase in fatal crashes, suggesting some moral hazard effects among drivers using ADAS-equipped vehicles. A regression discontinuity analysis centered on the annual transition to Daylight Savings Time provides supporting evidence. Notably, our estimates are sensitive to the composition of the non-ADAS comparison group, as older vehicles appear to experience more crashes at times of heightened risk.
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