Smarter cars, but more distracted drivers, too

Advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) have made cars smarter, enabling them to help avoid collisions, technology has been no match for human error. There simply have not been enough ADAS-equipped vehicles on the road to make up for a rising number of accidents caused by distracted driving and other dangerous driving behaviors.

In our 2017 paper, “Will autonomous vehicles put the brakes on the collision parts business?,” we predicted that as ADAS became more prevalent in vehicles, crashes would decline, cutting into the highly profitable replacement-part business of automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), as well as the rest of the collision-repair market - body shops, auto repair shops, and insurance companies.