Dr Natasha Serat, who leads the Safety & Technology Group at the Institute, said tests in the facility's driving simulator also said that when given a secondary task while the 'car' was in fully autonomous mode, it took the subjects much longer to react to an emergency. "That's when it gets really bad, because they have to switch their attention back on again."
Dr Merat said that in an ideal world, taking the human 'out of the loop' in driving provides an argument that there is improved safety.
"But we need to understand that drivers know what's going on with the automation, what it is doing, and what happens when it switches off ... because that's where things go wrong. We don't know what happens to drivers when we increase the use of these technologies, when they become more supervisors of systems than actual drivers."
Dr Serat, an Associate Professor at the Institute, also noted that drivers need to be aware of the meaning of the various signals, such as 'beeps', when the vehicle systems are trying to warn about something.
She added in conclusion that automation is increasing in vehicles 'whether we like it or not'.
The Forum was held at Dublin's RDS headquarters, and was sponsored by Continental Ireland. It included a presentation by Dr Pim van der Jagt, Head of Ford's Engineering and Advanced Research facility at Aachen, Germany.
