Pedestrians are often advised to wear reflective strips on their clothing so that car drivers can see them, but a new report says that such safety precautions are useless in the eyes of some automatic braking systems.
The worst systems were on two popular models made by Honda and Mazda.
The alarming finding by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety will likely shock millions of American pedestrians ... and maybe even force change among the governmental agencies that lay the onus on them for their own safety.
In the study, researchers outfitted an adult-sized dummy black clothing, one in white clothing, one with a reflective jacket and one with a reflective strips in a configuration similar to those worn by roadway workers (though their safety gear is generally bright orange or yellow rather than black).
The tests were run at 25 mph in three conditions — with no roadway lighting, with 10 lux of illumination and with the federally recommended 20 lux of illumination. Every time the test was run, no matter the lighting conditions, the Honda CR-V and the Mazda CX-5 hit the dummy with the reflective strips. And the Honda hit the dummy with the reflective jacket every time, too.
A Subaru Forester came to a complete stop without hitting the pedestrian dummy in every trial except one: the one with the dummy wearing reflective strips and roadway lighting at 10 lux. At least the Forester slowed down by more than 80 percent, though it still hit the dummy dressed as a roadway worker.
David Kidd, a senior research scientist at IIHS, found the results "concerning."
"It certainly was surprising that those two vehicles didn't respond at all when our when the pedestrian was wearing those reflective strips on the joints and limbs," he said. "That's a configuration that you have emergency personnel as well as construction workers use to become very visible to drivers at night."
He couldn't explain exactly why those two models "struggled."
"The Forester responded without any problems, so it can be done," he said. "Hopefully bringing these results to light motivates manufacturers to improve the technology so that it can respond to pedestrians no matter what they're wearing."
Mazda claimed it's working on it.
“Roadway safety for everyone, including those in and around our vehicles, is a top priority for Mazda," claimed company spokesperson Tamara Mlynarczyk. "Our engineers are continuously working to improve Mazda’s crash avoidance systems and are already using these latest IIHS results to further assist us in this work, with special consideration for nighttime pedestrian scenarios.” (Honda did not respond.)
Overall, what did the researchers learn? Drivers are better than automated systems in this unique circumstance:
"This technology, automatic emergency braking is amazing and it does prevent crashes, but it's still nascent technology that's not going to respond to everything," Kidd said, referring to prior research showing that automatic emergency braking systems reduce the rate of pedestrian crashes by 27 percent (though not at night).
Meanwhile, government agencies continue to advise pedestrians to "be seen."
"Wear light-colored clothing and add reflective material to increase visibility – especially when walking at night," says the website of the New York Governor's Traffic Safety Committee, similar to language that appears on other government sites, including on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website.
Kidd said the governments should continue to offer this advice, despite the fact that the strips are of no help to people sharing the road at night with the drivers of Honda CR-Vs and Mazda CX-5s.
"Governments should not alter their advice," he said. "As a pedestrian, if you're going out at night, it's important to wear clothing that makes you as visible to drivers as possible, especially strips on the joints and limbs. Drivers can see you and make the right choice. That's what it comes down to.
"As drivers, we're pretty amazing," he added. "People are able to perceive what's out on the roadway and make quick decisions when things get confusing or are uncertain. And these technologies are not as adept at doing those type of things as we are."
So, pedestrians, keep wearing reflective strips so drivers can see you — but you still need to look out for Hondas and Madzas.
Check out the testing video:
