A method, medium, and apparatus for educating and reducing risk to inexperienced drivers using vehicles with autonomous navigation systems. Data regarding a driver's past experience with vehicles and operating environments may be used to proactively warn the driver about a potential danger detected or predicted by the vehicle. An autonomous vehicle may prevent the driver from operating the vehicle under unfamiliar circumstances or from causing a collision. Data regarding a driver's past experience with vehicles and the safety features thereof may be used to mitigate risk of injury or property damage by selectively activating safety features in a new vehicle which the driver has not previously driven. Data regarding a driver's past experience with vehicles and safety features thereof may be used to determine a decreased or increased rental rate for a particular vehicle.

A driver assistance system has an emergency stop function for a motor vehicle. The motor vehicle has an electric parking brake. A parking-brake operating element is used to activate the electric parking brake. The driver assistance system is designed to activate an emergency stop function in accordance with the actuation of the parking-brake operating element and, as part of the emergency stop function, to perform an autonomous emergency stop driving maneuver for the emergency stopping of the vehicle. The driver assistance system is characterized in that the driver assistance system is designed to activate the emergency stop function only in response to an end of the actuation of the parking-brake operating element.

A computer-implemented method, system, and/or computer program product controls a driving mode of a self-driving vehicle (SDV). One or more processors compare a control processor competence level of an on-board SDV control processor in controlling the SDV to a human driver competence level of a human driver in controlling the SDV while the SDV encounters a current roadway condition which is a result of current weather conditions of the roadway on which the SDV is currently traveling. One or more processors then selectively assign control of the SDV to the SDV control processor or to the human driver while the SDV encounters the current roadway condition based on which of the control processor competence level and the human driver competence level is relatively higher to one another.

Methods and systems for monitoring use, determining risk, and recommending usage levels of one or more autonomous (and/or semi-autonomous) operation features of a vehicle are provided. According to certain aspects, operating data from sensors within the vehicle may be used to determine risks associated with use of the features, which may include use at particular levels or with certain settings. The operating data may further be used to determine optimal or suggested use levels for the features. When the actual and suggested use levels differ, an alert may be generated and presented to the vehicle operator indicating suggested changes. The vehicle operator may then change the use levels or select an option to change the usage to the suggested use levels. The response of the vehicle operator may be used to determine or adjust aspects of an insurance policy associated with the vehicle.

Methods and systems for determining the effectiveness of one or more autonomous (and/or semi-autonomous) operation features of a vehicle are provided. According to certain aspects, information regarding autonomous operation features of the vehicle may be used to determine an effectiveness metric indicative of the ability of each autonomous operation feature to avoid or mitigate accidents or other losses. The information may include operating data from the vehicle or other vehicles having similar autonomous operation features, test data, or loss data from other vehicles. The determined effectiveness metric may then be used to determine part or all of an insurance policy, which may be reviewed by an insured and updated based upon the effectiveness metric.

A method for overriding a driving mode in an automatic longitudinal guidance mode of a motor vehicle includes setting a longitudinal guidance mode in the motor vehicle, providing a target speed for a journey event in the longitudinal guidance mode, manually overriding the target speed when the journey event is driven through by the motor vehicle, and aborting of the longitudinal guidance mode if the target speed of the journey event cannot be achieved within a settable delay.

A method for automated driving of a vehicle, comprising: provide function modules, wherein the function modules each comprise at least one subfunction for automated driving, and wherein the function modules are each assigned at least one module validity attribute that defines the context of the surroundings in which the particular function module is valid, provide at least one system configuration, wherein the at least one system configuration comprises at least one of the function modules, and wherein the at least one system configuration is assigned at least one configuration validity attribute that defines the context of the surroundings in which the at least one system configuration is valid, select one of the at least one system configurations, wherein the selection depends on a context of the surroundings and the at least one associated configuration validity attribute, control the vehicle, wherein controlling is based on the selected system configuration.

An apparatus for providing a safety strategy in a vehicle is provided. The apparatus includes a sensor configured to sense information about the outside of the vehicle, a memory storing road information, and a control circuit configured to be electrically connected with the sensor and the memory. The control circuit generates a route which is toward a shoulder included in a road where the vehicle is traveling, when a control authority transition demand of the vehicle is ignored, adjusts an operational condition of an automatic lane change based on at least a portion of a speed of the vehicle, a speed of a following vehicle in a target lane of the route, or a distance between the vehicle and the following vehicle, and performs the automatic lane change toward the shoulder along the route, when the adjusted operational condition is satisfied.

A traveling position of a host vehicle is controlled using barrier lines as a reference. Autonomous driving is executed by either a both-side recognition control in which the position of the host vehicle is controlled based on left and right barrier lines, or a one-side recognition control in which the position of the host vehicle is controlled based on either one of the left or right the barrier lines. A region currently being traveled in is stored as a steering-wheel-turned region when a steering wheel is turned in one direction and subsequently turned in a returning direction due to the switching of control between the both-side recognition control and the one-side recognition control, and autonomous driving under the control preceding the steering-wheel-turned region is continued when the steering-wheel-turned region is subsequently traveled in.

A system, vehicle and method are provided that automatically activate and deactivate a driver assistance system. The automatic activation and deactivation depend on predefined criteria such as brake or gas pedal release, current vehicle velocity, and the presence of a lead vehicle.