Smarter choices: Why turning off safety systems is a bad idea

According to the National Road Safety Data Hub, there were 1,325 road deaths in the 12 months to 30 June 2026 – and the calendar year-to-date figures, at 666 deaths, are higher than any comparable period in the last six years.

Insurer IAG last year surveyed more than 2,000 Australians that have Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS) – which include things like automatic emergency braking, lane and parking assistance, collision avoidance and blind spot information systems. It found that 60 per cent of drivers admit to actively turning off ADAS in their cars and only one in three have them as the default setting when on the road.

Since then, IAG has been conducting field studies at RACQ Mobility Centre in Brisbane to figure out whether different types of crashes can be mitigated by proper ADAS usage. It’s set to report on the findings before the end of this year.

Separate reports by the University of Melbourne found one in five Australian drivers have turned at least one driver assistance feature off (and, like IAG, suggested better education on how safety features work could be beneficial).

Not just Australia

It’s a similar picture around the world. A 2023 survey by French multinational insurer Axa and road safety charity Brake suggests that 41 per cent of UK drivers have turned off car safety features – mostly because they find them annoying.

A 2018 report by US non-profit the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety suggests Advanced Driver Assistance Systems “have the potential to prevent a combined total of approximately 40 per cent of all passenger-vehicle crashes, 37 per cent of injuries that occur in crashes involving passenger vehicles, and 29 per cent of all deaths in crashes that involve passenger vehicles”.

It found the vast majority of life-saving potential could be delivered by forward collision warning and automatic emergency braking systems, plus lane departure warning and lane keeping assistance technologies.

An international study pooling large data-sets came to similar conclusions – though found that some technologies, such as adaptive cruise control, could actually increase the risk of crashing: Per the study: “Because the system relieves the driver of an aspect of the driving task, it can also lead to distraction, with a possible negative effect on road safety.”

The study also referred to other data that suggests drivers may benefit from increased education at point of sale – i.e. retailers and dealerships – and that dealers themselves could perhaps benefit from comprehensive training by manufacturers on safety systems to better inform customers. The only safe crash

Volvo Cars invests billions of dollars in safety research. For a more than a quarter of a century, it has crashed a new car on average every working day at the Volvo Cars Safety Centre in Gothenburg; thousands of perfectly crafted cars deliberately crashed in order to keep Volvo drivers, their passengers and other road users alive and well.

In 2019, Volvo decided to share all of its safety research so that all manufacturers could make safer cars. Via the E.V.A. Initiative – which stands for Equal Vehicles for All – anyone can download more than 50 years of Volvo safety research.

Opening up Volvo’s patent for the three-point seatbelt to other manufacturers is estimated to have helped save over a million lives since 1959 – and its safety technologies continue to help drivers survive the unexpected, even when a collision is impossible to avoid. ([Like a 400-kilo moose making a fatal misstep in a blizzard.])[https://www.volvocars.com/au/news/the-day-adam-hit-a-moose-his-xc60-kept-him-unharmed/]

Safety coach incoming

Yet the most advanced safety technology – even when not disabled by drivers – can only do so much: Ultimately, the driver is responsible for the safe operation of the vehicle at all times.

Which is one of the reasons Volvo is rolling out a ‘Safety Coach’ app, initially in Scandinavia ahead of international markets.

The app will give drivers real-time driving insights and tips directly through the infotainment screen and the Volvo Cars mobile app – based on the driver’s behaviour in daily traffic.

Entirely optionally, the app is also designed to allow drivers to share data with insurers – should they wish – to bring down premiums based on how they actually drive.

Which hopefully reduces the avoidable human cost of car accidents and the unavoidable costs of insurance.

Learn more about Volvo Cars advanced safety features here.