FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 4, 2020
PAVE joins standardized naming effort by leading safety groups to help reduce confusion and improve safety
WASHINGTON, DC – Partners for Automated Vehicle Education today endorsed an effort by several leading safety organizations to help reduce consumer confusion by adopting standardized naming for advanced driver assistance technology.
The effort — by AAA, the National Safety Council, Consumer Reports, JD Power, and SAE International — is intended to help educate consumers on the benefits, limitations and proper usage of these technologies by establishing standardized naming that is simple, specific, and based on system functionality.
“We know that familiarity with today’s advanced safety technology helps consumers understand the possibilities of tomorrow’s technology. And we know that confusion about that technology reduces trust and confidence in vehicles today and vehicles under development for the future,” said PAVE Executive Director Tara Andringa. “PAVE’s mission is to help everyone join the conversation about our transportation future, and providing clear, consistent vocabulary for that conversation is an important step.”
Research by AAA found that as many as 20 names are used by different vehicle manufacturers in describing a single ADAS feature, increasing consumer confusion. This nomenclature initiative is intended to improve safety and save lives by helping consumers to understand the technology by promoting clear, consistent information on content such as window stickers and owners’ manuals. The effort is not intended to replace manufacturers’ proprietary systems or package names.
PAVE’s Medium post provides additional information about why developing common nomenclature about lower levels of driving automation is an important step in convening a society-wide conversation about the future of technology.
PAVE is a nonprofit educational organization that promotes factual, hype-free information about automated vehicles and their potential societal effects. For more on PAVE, visit www.pavecampaign.org and follow us on social media @PAVEcampaign.
