Report: ADAS Systems Struggle To Recognize Pedestrians Wearing Reflective Clothing After Dark

Don’t throw away your bedazzled jeans or hi-viz vest just yet, but maybe don’t rely on them to make you visible to drivers if you’re walking or biking after dark. IIHS President David Harkey said, “These results suggest that some automakers need to tweak their pedestrian automatic emergency braking systems. It’s untenable that the clothes that pedestrians, cyclists, and roadway workers wear to be safe may make them harder for crash avoidance technology to recognize.”

While some vehicle, such as the Subaru Forester, do a good job at recognizing pedestrians after dark, the IIHS has reported that most systems offer a negligible improvement in pedestrian detection when the sun goes down. That’s compared to a 27-percent reduction in pedestrian crashes during daylight hours.

Testing for the report involved using dummies dressed in black with reflective materials on different parts of the body. The dummies wearing reflective clothing were hit almost 90 percent of the time by the Honda CR-V and Mazda CX-5 in the tests. Vehicles still struggled with dummies in black-only clothing, but the IIHS noted that they performed much better with additional lighting.

[Images: IIHS]

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