New GM study proves that ADAS (Advanced Driver Assist System) are making roads safer.

General Motors partnered with the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) to better understand the real-world benefits of advanced driver assist technologies.

The study looked at data from 3.7 million GM vehicles from 2013-2017. Fifteen different systems were evaluated using police report crash databases from 10 states.

The results show that several of these features are making a statistically significant impact in helping to reduce crashes. For instance:

– Automatic Emergency Braking (or Forward Automatic Braking) with Forward Collision Alert reduced rear-end striking crashes by 46%.

– Lane Keep Assist with Lane Departure Warning reduced lane departure-related crashes by 20%.

– Lane Change Alert with Side Blind Zone Alert reduced lane change crashes by 26%.

– Rear Vision Camera alone, Rear Park Assist functionality, Rear Cross Traffic Alert and Reverse Automatic Braking produced, respectively, an estimated 21%, 38%, 52%, and 81% reduction in backing crashes.

– IntelliBeam and High-Intensity Discharge headlight features provided 35% and 21% reductions, respectively, in nighttime pedestrian/bicyclist/animal crashes, with a 49% reduction when offered together.

“A key finding of this work is that we can make substantial gains in safety through deployment of advanced driver assistance systems such as forward and rear emergency braking, rear cross-traffic alert, and others. In addition, we found that the more automated the system, the greater the benefits,” said UMTRI Research Associate Professor, Carol Flannagan.