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LOS ANGELES — It could be decades before cars that completely drive themselves are a reality, but so-called Advanced Driver Assistance Systems are showing up in more and more vehicles. The Automobile Club of Southern California tested 59 passenger vehicles for its 2021 Car Guide, ranking them based on in-vehicle technologies.
Five things you need to know about Advanced Driver Assistance Systems:
- So-called ADAS are safety technologies designed to help a car avoid crashing or to lessen the severity of a crash.
- About 90% of new cars and light trucks have at least one ADAS.
- The most popular ADAS features include automatic emergency braking to apply the brakes if a potential collision is detected and lane-keeping assistance that can take over the steering to ensure a vehicle stays in its lane.
- ADAS use a combination of sensors, cameras, radar and lidar to scan the vehicle’s environment and process the information so it can respond more quickly or accurately than a human driver.
- The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety found that traffic deaths would be reduced by 29% and traffic injuries would be reduced by 37% if ADAS technologies were used universally.