Most drivers think of distracted driving as texting while driving or eating while merging onto the highway. And those activities are real problems. But there is another form of distraction that gets far less attention and may actually be growing: the overreliance on driver-assistance technology built into the car itself.
April is Distracted Driving Awareness Month, and this year, it is worth broadening the conversation beyond smartphones. A significant number of new vehicles on the road today are equipped with systems like adaptive cruise control and lane-keeping assist. These technologies are sold as safety improvements, and in some respects, they are. But research tells a more complicated story about how drivers actually behave when these systems are running.
As Norfolk car accident attorneys, our team at Shapiro, Washburn & Sharp has represented injured clients across a range of car accident scenarios. Increasingly, those cases involve questions about technology — not just what a driver was doing, but what their vehicle was doing and whether either one failed.
Distracted Driving Awareness Month
Recognized every April, Distracted Driving Awareness Month was established to give safety organizations, law enforcement agencies, and advocates a shared moment to push the issue into public view. In Virginia, it has been observed for nearly two decades. The Virginia Department of Transportation, the DMV, Virginia State Police, and groups like DRIVE SMART Virginia all use this month to promote awareness and encourage behavior change among drivers across the Commonwealth.
The month matters because distracted driving does not slow down on its own. Despite stronger laws and continued public campaigns, the problem persists. In Virginia, distraction-related crashes increased in lethality in 2024, even as overall crash numbers held relatively steady. April is a reminder that the consequences of inattention behind the wheel are real, they happen every day, and in many cases, they are entirely avoidable. For anyone hurt by a distracted driver, it is also a reminder that the law provides a path to accountability and compensation.
What the Research Shows About Driver Assistance Systems
The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety conducted research in collaboration with the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute examining how drivers behave when adaptive cruise control and lane-keeping assist are engaged. The findings were not reassuring. Drivers who had owned vehicles with these systems for longer were nearly twice as likely to engage in distracted driving behaviors when the systems were active as when driving without them. Texting, adjusting the radio, and other non-driving activities all increased when the assistance features were running.
The research team offered a theory for why this happens. Drivers new to these systems tend to stay alert. They do not fully trust the technology yet, so they pay close attention. Over time, that changes. As familiarity builds, so does overconfidence. Drivers relax. They start to assume the car will handle things. Warning systems that alert the driver to inattention get triggered more frequently over the weeks of use, not less, which is the opposite of what you would hope for.
A 2023 follow-up study from the AAA Foundation reinforced this pattern. After six to eight weeks of using ADAS-equipped vehicles, drivers received more frequent system warnings to pay attention. That increase in warnings directly corresponded with their growing comfort using non-driving activities while behind the wheel.
What These Systems Actually Do and Where They Fall Short
Adaptive cruise control, often called ACC, adjusts a vehicle's speed automatically to maintain a set following distance from the car ahead. It can speed up and slow down without the driver doing anything. Lane-keeping assist detects lane markings and will apply gentle steering input if the vehicle begins to drift. Together, they handle two of the most routine but attention-demanding aspects of highway driving.
The problem is that both systems still require an attentive driver. They are designed to assist, not replace, human judgment. Neither can reliably handle complex driving decisions, unexpected road conditions, construction zones, erratic driver behavior by others, or poor weather.
Common ways these systems fall short include:
- Failure to detect stopped vehicles or slow-moving traffic in time to brake safely
- Difficulty maintaining lane position on roads without clear markings
- Unexpected disengagement, sometimes without adequate warning to the driver
- Overreaction to roadside objects or shadows that trigger unnecessary braking
- Inability to handle situations that require anticipation rather than just reaction
When a driver is not actively monitoring the road because they trust the system to handle it, any one of these failures can lead to a serious crash before the driver even realizes what is happening.
Who May Be Liable When ADAS Is Involved in a Crash
This is where accident cases involving driver-assistance technology become more complicated than a standard distracted-driving claim. In a typical car accident, the analysis focuses on what the driver did or failed to do. When ADAS is involved, there may be more than one party responsible.
If the driver became distracted because they assumed the system was managing things, and that overreliance directly contributed to a crash, the driver can still be held liable for their own inattentiveness. Virginia law does not excuse a driver from responsibility simply because their vehicle had assistance features active.
But if the system itself malfunctioned — if it failed to brake as designed, disengaged without warning, or responded to a situation in a way that caused the vehicle to behave erratically — the vehicle manufacturer or component maker may also share responsibility. Virginia law allows injured parties to pursue product liability claims when a defective product caused or contributed to harm. That means a car accident claim could involve not just the other driver but also the vehicle manufacturer or the ADAS component itself.
Modern vehicles store significant amounts of data through their event data recorders, sometimes called the vehicle's black box. This data can show whether ADAS was engaged at the time of a crash, whether any alerts were issued to the driver, and how the vehicle responded in the moments before impact. Preserving and obtaining that data as early as possible is often a key step in these cases.
Distracted Driving and ADAS: What Virginia Data Tells Us
According to the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, distracted driving caused 18,688 crashes, 73 fatalities, and more than 10,000 injuries in Virginia in 2024 alone. Cell phone distraction rose 3 percent from 2023 to 2024, even with Virginia's hands-free law in place. What the data does not fully capture is how much driver assistance technology may be contributing to distraction-related incidents through the kind of complacency the AAA research documents.
Virginia Beach car accident victims who are hurt in crashes involving ADAS-equipped vehicles face a more layered situation than they might expect. The question of who is responsible may not have a single answer, and building a complete picture of what happened requires examining both driver behavior and vehicle data.
What Injured Victims Can Recover
When a distracted driver — whether distracted by a phone, by a passenger, or by overreliance on technology — causes a crash, the injured victim may be able to seek compensation for the losses that follow. Those losses typically include:
- Medical expenses, both current and anticipated future costs
- Lost wages and, in serious cases, reduced long-term earning capacity
- Pain and suffering
- Emotional distress and loss of enjoyment of daily life
- Permanent disability or disfigurement
If the crash also involved a product defect — a malfunctioning ADAS system, for example — damages can potentially be sought from the manufacturer as well as the driver. These are the kinds of cases that require careful investigation from the start, before data is lost or evidence is compromised.
About Shapiro, Washburn & Sharp
Shapiro, Washburn & Sharp has practiced injury law in Virginia since 1985, handling car accident claims, product liability cases, and serious injury matters throughout the Commonwealth. Injury law is the firm's sole focus. Our team brings over 100 years of combined legal experience to every case we handle, and the firm has recovered more than $100 million for injured clients over its history.
Our attorneys have handled Virginia car accident claims across a wide range of scenarios — straightforward rear-end collisions, multi-vehicle crashes, and, increasingly, cases where vehicle technology is part of the investigation.
If you or someone in your family has been hurt in a crash involving a distracted driver or a vehicle with driver assistance technology that may have failed, the Norfolk car accident lawyers at Shapiro, Washburn & Sharp are ready to review what happened. Our attorneys work with accident reconstruction professionals and medical providers to build thorough cases for our clients.
One example of that work: our firm secured a $525,000 settlement for a Virginia Beach sales manager who suffered a traumatic brain injury, shoulder dislocation, and spinal injuries after being struck at an intersection by a driver who failed to yield.
Contact us at 833-997-1774 for a free consultation. We have offices in Virginia Beach, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Hampton, Norfolk, and Chesapeake.
