See it, hear it, feel it: How driving assistants grab your attention

Today’s drivers are never alone. Our cars are increasingly equipped with assistance systems that offer feedback, some working silently in the background and others fighting for our attention. While these systems largely help the driver and even save lives, the challenge lies in creating convenient and unobtrusive systems that don’t divert our attention from the road or create safety issues. Identifying where the line is between driver distraction and driver assistance can be difficult. This is why it’s important to understand how each technology interacts with the driver, the purpose of the technology and the potential consequences of adding a certain feature to a vehicle’s driver assistance system. Failing to do any one of these steps could lead to much worse outcomes than simply customer dissatisfaction, potentially threatening passenger safety and causing irreparable damage to automakers.