Insurance.com announced it has published survey results on driver acceptance of auto safety features that indicate that 21% of car owners say they would disable certain safety features after buying a new car. Only 10% of drivers surveyed admitted to turning off auto safety features.
The four most frequently disabled safety features are:
- Lane-keeping assist – 19% of those who admit to turning off features disabled it
- Smart headlights – 17%
- Lane departure warning – 15%
- Automatic parking – 13%
Men confess to shutting off safety features a bit more often than women do (11% vs. 8%), but the sexes typically disable different things. Men just say “no” to automatic parking, reverse monitoring and blind-spot warning indicators, while women skip smart headlights and drowsy driver alerts. Both genders admit disabling lane-keeping assistance.
“With new cars relying on increasingly complex technology, we find that two-thirds of respondents express willingness to take a class showing how a vehicle’s high-tech safety features work,” said Les Masterson, managing editor of Insurance.com. “Still, 30% of those say they will only participate if a course is online, and 21% will only receive training if doing so earns them an insurance discount.”
The top three features respondents anticipate disabling in a future car are:
- Automatic parking – 11%
- Automatic emergency brake – 9%
- Adaptive cruise control – 9%
To view the complete survey results, click here.
