LONDON: Safety systems designed to help motorists are coming under closer scrutiny as road casualty rates fail to dip and concern grows that many drivers are switching off the "annoying" technology.

"As much as it is a challenge to insist that manufacturers fit the latest safety technologies, the real challenge lies in convincing consumers of their necessity," Euro NCAP secretary general Michiel van Ratinge told the British motoring magazine Autocar.

"There is a worrying trend of media and social channels encouraging drivers ‘to turn them off’," said the expert at The European New Car Assessment Programme.

Advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) are now standard across most new vehicles and include speed warnings, blind-spot and lane departure warning, emergency brake assist and adaptive cruise control.

Critics say many safety enhancements like lane assist may be little more than driver conveniences and that some potential life-savers like pedestrian detection are unreliable.

Despite the aids, the number of car road accident casualties across Europe is currently flat-lining rather than going down.

Euro NCAP has said it will step up work to improve its evaluation of the technology in the real world, with emphasis on the intuitiveness and user acceptance of systems.

Since 2015, the Advanced Vehicle Technology Consortium, based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States, has also been investigating ADAS and other high-tech vehicle technologies including autonomous systems, said Autocar.

Experts say drivers find many of the systems irritating, especially when warning bells chime or steering assist moves the wheel to avoid the driver inadvertently drifting out of lane.

Mercedes's chief technical officer Markus Schäfer told the Autoexpress gazette the company had responded to customer complaints over one system.

They had now made it possible to switch off tech that bongs every time drivers in Britain exceed an indicated 50kph in built-up areas, or 114kph on a motorway. The warnings are a legal requirement in the UK.

Sometimes, the tech can be counterproductive. A study in the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in the US found that drivers using adaptive cruise control were more likely to break the speed limit.

In combination with autonomous systems such as lane centering, researchers found the technology led to the risk of a fatal crash increasing by 10%.

"Adaptive cruise control does have some safety benefits," said Sam Monfort, the study's lead author. "But it's important to consider how drivers might cancel out these by misusing the system."

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