Cruise Control Confusion: 41% of Drivers Can’t Read the Signs

Increasingly intelligent cars don’t necessarily come with increasingly competent drivers. A new study from the UK reveals that 41% of drivers are unable to identify a single cruise control warning light—an unsettling finding in an age where vehicles are already capable of braking, steering, and parking themselves.

Commissioned by Warrantywise and conducted by OnePoll, the survey shows that only 28% of drivers could identify the distance warning indicator, while 33% recognized the cruise control symbol. Nearly half of those surveyed had no idea what any of these dashboard icons meant. In other words, cars are talking, but drivers aren’t listening.

If even the most basic dashboard symbols go misunderstood, one has to question how realistic it is to speak of widespread readiness for autonomous vehicles, when the people behind the wheel can’t even recognize a warning.

Warrantywise CEO Antony Diggins puts it mildly: cars may be smarter, but drivers aren’t necessarily keeping pace. More seriously, this knowledge gap can delay critical decisions, increasing the risks to both road safety and maintenance costs.

The same survey found that 61% of drivers don’t regularly use their vehicle’s advanced driver assistance systems, while roughly a quarter have turned them off entirely, citing confusion and distraction as the main reasons.

Today’s cars are packed with more lines of code than a fighter jet or a commercial airliner, but if the driver doesn’t understand what the car is telling them, even a minor issue can go unnoticed until it turns into a costly failure.