A Quarter of Driver’s Aren’t Using Their Car’s Safety Tech. Are You One Of Them?

If your car has adaptive cruise control, lane keeping assist, or automatic emergency braking, there's a good chance you're not using all of it. A recent UK-wide survey of over 1,300 drivers found that nearly one in four people with adaptive cruise control never switch it on. More than a fifth ignore automatic emergency braking, and almost 18% turn off lane keeping assist altogether. A smaller number said they simply didn't know how the tech worked in the first place.

That's a lot of safety features sitting dormant in cars people are already paying for.

Why this happens

It's rarely a case of the tech being bad. It's usually that nobody had the time, or the confidence, to explain it properly. Collection day is a busy one. There's paperwork, a new set of keys, maybe a trade-in to sort out, and a list of settings that can feel like a lot to take in all at once. Adaptive cruise gets a passing mention, lane assist gets switched off because it felt intrusive on the first drive, and neither one gets revisited again.

What these features are actually doing

Adaptive cruise control keeps a set distance from the car in front and adjusts your speed automatically, slowing down in traffic and speeding back up once the road clears. On a long run down to Dublin or back from the coast, it takes a huge amount of the strain out of driving.

Automatic emergency braking is there for the moment you don't see coming. It watches the road ahead and will brake on your behalf if it detects a collision risk you haven't reacted to in time.

Lane keeping assist gently nudges you back if you start to drift out of your lane, usually the sign of a lapse in concentration rather than a wrong turn. Some drivers find it too "hands-on" at first and switch it off within the first week. Given a bit more time, most come round to it.

None of these are there to take over the driving. They're there to back you up.

It's not that people are bad with car tech either. Bluetooth, reversing cameras and built-in navigation are used and loved by the vast majority of drivers, they solve an obvious problem the moment you switch them on. The safety layer just takes a bit more explaining, and that's exactly the bit that tends to get skipped.

This isn't just a new car conversation

It's easy to assume this kind of tech only comes on brand new models, but it's increasingly common across used stock too. A good number of the cars on our Used Car Supermarket forecourt already have adaptive cruise, lane assist or emergency braking fitted as standard from the factory. If you've bought used and were never shown what your car can do, that's worth a ten-minute conversation.

If you're due a service, ask your advisor to walk you through your safety tech while your car's in with us. It's the easiest time to fit it in, no extra visit needed.

If your current car doesn't have adaptive cruise control, automatic emergency braking or lane keeping assist and you'd like it to, come and take one out for a test drive. It's the best way to actually feel the difference rather than just reading about it. Plenty of what's on the forecourt, new and used, comes with this tech fitted as standard.

You already paid for the tech you've got. Might as well use it, and if you fancy an upgrade, come and try it for yourself.