Frequent rear-end crashes involving assisted driving: system disengages at the last second, but liability still falls on the driver

[[**On the eve of the National Day holiday, a smart-driving rear-end collision occurred on the Shanghai-Kunming Expressway: the vehicle's assisted driving suddenly disengaged when it was less than 10 meters from the car ahead, and the driver had no time to take over before the crash. Traffic police ruled that the driver is always the first party responsible for safety, but such "last-second disengagement, blame-shifting" accidents occur frequently, exposing the gray zone of responsibility in current L2-level assisted driving.**

**Key points**

**1. Smart driving's "last-second disengagement" causes frequent rear-end collisions**

On the Shanghai-Kunming Expressway, a vehicle with assisted driving enabled rear-ended a large truck at night; when the system prompted disengagement, it was less than 10 meters from the vehicle ahead, and the driver had no time to brake. Similar cases have occurred in Shandong, the Jiqing Expressway and elsewhere, where smart driving systems suddenly disengaged 1-2 seconds before a collision, far exceeding the at least 1-5 seconds of reaction time an ordinary person needs.

**2. Legally, responsibility always lies with the driver**

Mass-produced vehicles sold on the market are all legally L2-level assisted driving, and the Supreme People's Court has made clear that the driver remains the person responsible for performing the driving task after activating the system. Automakers only need to prove that they "issued a warning and disengaged" to be exempt from liability, and there is no quantitative standard for how much reaction time is left to the driver before an accident, making it almost impossible for car owners to win a lawsuit.

**3. New national standards will prohibit "blame-shifting disengagement"**

Two mandatory national standards for intelligent connected vehicles that take effect in 2027 require L3-level automated driving systems to give the driver at least 10 seconds to respond after issuing a takeover request, otherwise triggering a risk strategy in which the vehicle decelerates and pulls over to stop on its own. If the system disengages without giving enough time, responsibility will point directly to the automaker.

**4. The definition of responsibility will reach a watershed in the L3 era**

The draft revision of the Road Traffic Safety Law sets up a dedicated chapter on automated driving for the first time, clarifying that the responsible party in an accident while the system is activated is the automaker. But in the window period before the L2 mandatory standards take effect, drivers still need to maintain respect for the boundaries of the technology and keep their hands on the wheel. 2026-09-30 14:42 Before driving on the expressway for National Day, take a look at this smart-driving rear-end collision. Super Electric Lab quick overview

This article is from the WeChat public account: Super Electric Lab, author: Wang Lei, editor: Qin Zhangyong

Tomorrow is the National Day holiday.

At this moment, although most people are sitting at their workstations, their minds have already drifted thousands of miles away; they have planned their navigation routes eight hundred times and are ready with what songs to listen to on the road. Although the journey is long, they will always silently say one thing—there's smart driving, so long trips won't be tiring.

Assisted driving has become a must-have configuration for many people on long trips. Advertisements say it can automatically follow the car ahead, automatically change lanes and even automatically avoid obstacles, as if sitting in the car you can effortlessly and elegantly reach your destination.

But turning on assisted driving does not mean handing driving responsibility to the car. On National Day holiday roads, the tail ends of cars queuing at service areas, vehicles suddenly changing lanes, and temporary construction can all suddenly complicate an otherwise smooth stretch of road.

Moreover, we are still far from L3 level. Even if responsibility can be clarified, the accidents that actually occur always throw a bucket of cold water over everything.

01

Blame-shifting one second before the accident

First, look at an accident just reported by People's Daily, which happened just a day ago.

On the Anshun section of the Shanghai-Kunming Expressway, a passenger car rear-ended a large truck while driving at night. The reason was that the driver had turned on the vehicle's assisted driving function, but relaxed vigilance because of over-reliance on the system. As a result, when approaching the large truck ahead, the system suddenly prompted "navigation-assisted driving has disengaged" and required manual takeover.

But at that moment, the distance to the large truck ahead was less than 10 meters, and the next second, the accident happened instantly.

The traffic police's final ruling was crisp: intelligent assisted driving is only a driving helper, and the driver is always the first party responsible for safety.

Fortunately, the accident caused no casualties, but afterward the driver said, "It only handed control to me at less than 10 meters; there was simply no time to brake."

A seemingly complaining phrase, "simply no time," also points to a long-standing point of conflict between automakers and drivers.

Today, when buying a car, almost everyone is won over by automakers' smart driving features. According to survey data previously released by the China Passenger Car Association, the level of smart driving has already ranked among the top three weights in consumers' car-purchase decisions.

Coupled with major brands' overwhelming promotion of the wonders of autonomous driving, we mistakenly believe the car is already smart enough to help share the fatigue of driving, and that we can even relax and let our minds wander.

But car owners who have actually driven, or even experienced dangerous situations, know clearly that today's hyped-up assisted driving looks full of tech appeal but actually hides big pitfalls. The most deadly problem is the "blame-shifting disengagement" one second before an accident.

Setting aside this accident, there have already been no small number of such real cases.

Two months ago in Binzhou, Shandong, a car likewise rear-ended the vehicle ahead. The rear car's dashcam showed the smart-driving icon disappearing at the 7th second, and the vehicle crashing at the 9th second—only 2 seconds apart. Even though the driver had 40 years of driving experience, he still had no time to react.

In May last year, traffic police on the Jiqing Expressway also disclosed a case: the driver at fault was driving in smart-driving mode, and as the distance to the car ahead kept shrinking, the smart-driving system that should have assisted safety not only failed to decelerate but suddenly displayed disengagement one second before the collision, ultimately causing a rear-end accident.

On the car quality complaint website, a large number of complaints can also be seen. For example, a smart-driving system mistakenly identified the central median barrier as a large truck and kept decelerating; only 4 seconds after issuing the voice prompt "please control the direction," smart driving "directly forced disengagement," and the vehicle then scraped the guardrail. The owner wrote: "At highway speeds, the reserved reaction time is seriously insufficient, and it is simply impossible to take over the vehicle calmly."

There are also complaints that during normal driving, the smart driving system disengaged without reason, causing the car to lose control and hit the guardrail, with no time to react and take over. Although these did not cause very serious consequences, almost all of them contain the same sentence: "Before the accident, smart driving disengaged."

These cases piece together a disturbing state of affairs: when the smart driving system perceives a scenario beyond its own capability boundary—such as complex road conditions, severe weather, or sensor recognition errors—it will trigger a protection mechanism and hand control back to the driver.

But the problem is that this "handing back" often occurs in the last one or two seconds before impact, or even less.

An ordinary person's emergency reaction time requires at least 1 to 5 seconds. When smart driving suddenly quits in the last second, the reaction time left to the person is less than 1 second. In such an extremely rushed moment, an ordinary person simply has no time to react; the brain goes blank, and the hands and feet cannot keep up at all, making a crash almost inevitable.

Although from a technical logic perspective, this is not a "passing the buck" program set by automakers, but a passive reaction within the current boundaries of assisted driving capability. From the driver's perspective, however, it is tantamount to shirking responsibility.

02

Game of Rights and Responsibilities

What is even more frustrating is that after an accident occurs, car owners have almost no possibility of winning a rights-protection lawsuit.

Because a most basic fact, yet one that is always overlooked, is that to this day, none of the mass-produced passenger cars you can buy on the market is a true autonomous vehicle.

Although this year the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has approved market access for a batch of L3 conditionally autonomous driving models, they are only usable in specific cities and on specific road sections, and are not yet sold to the public.

In other words, under current regulations, the smart driving functions of all mass-produced cars you can see on the road are legally defined as L2 assisted driving.

Even though many manufacturers previously called it "high-level smart driving" or "full-scenario navigation" at launch events, along with marketing phrases such as "L2.9" and "L2.99," the essence is to blur the boundary between "human driving" and "smart driving," making many consumers mistakenly believe that what they bought is "autonomous driving."

Many automakers also advertise "zero takeovers over xx thousand kilometers" to prove how capable their systems are, indirectly shaping users' perception of "close to autonomous driving," but their regulatory and technical classification is only assisted driving.

In this competition of boasting, what is sacrificed is consumers' correct understanding of responsibility.

A guiding case released by the Supreme People's Court in February 2026 clearly stated that an in-vehicle assisted driving system cannot replace the driver as the subject of driving; after the driver activates the assisted driving function, the driver is still the person responsible for actually performing the driving task.

In other words, at the legal level, the responsible subject is always the driver, and this core rule has also become automakers' safest exemption card and the root of conflicts for countless car owners.

This means that as long as an automaker issues a reminder when the system disengages and retains data proving that it "has disengaged," it has completed compliance under the current legal framework, and the responsibility ultimately falls on the driver who has no time to react. As for how many seconds remain before the collision when the reminder is issued, and whether the driver has enough time to react, the current framework does not provide quantitative standards.

When risk forms during the system operation stage but the collision occurs after the system disengages, from the current perspective this remains a "gray zone" under the game of responsibility, and it is difficult to define the boundary of responsibility between automakers and drivers themselves.

This is also why the script of "smart driving disengaging in the last second" can appear repeatedly.

First, the Safety Requirements for Combined Driving Assistance Systems of Intelligent Connected Vehicles released in June clearly sets the safety baseline for L2 assisted driving systems and puts forward the core principle that "driver responsibility does not mean system exemption," prohibiting companies from using "the driver can take over at any time" as a reason for insufficient system capability.

The Safety Requirements for Autonomous Driving Systems of Intelligent Connected Vehicles released in July is also China's first mandatory national standard for high-level autonomous driving. It not only puts forward mandatory requirements such as takeover capability monitoring and minimum risk strategy, but also explicitly requires that the system must not merely transfer the danger of the final few seconds to the driver when it cannot handle the risk.

After the system issues a takeover request, it must ensure that the driver has at least 10 seconds of response time, and the warning signals must escalate over time and add tactile vibration, such as steering wheel vibration, seat vibration, or even brake tapping.

Even if the driver does not take over within 10 seconds, the system must trigger the minimum risk strategy: the vehicle slows down on its own, turns on the hazard lights, and gradually pulls over to stop, which forms a sharp contrast with the current L2 era situation of "disengaging one second before."

This also means that when L3 autonomous driving truly hits the road, "disengaging one second before the accident" will no longer be a legal option. If the system disengages without giving a full 10-second response window, responsibility will point directly to the automaker.

The former will be implemented in January 2027, and the latter in July 2027. More importantly, it clarifies the boundary of responsibility for L3 autonomous driving at the legislative level.

A month ago, the draft amendment to the Road Traffic Safety Law was formally submitted to the Standing Committee of the 14th National People's Congress for initial review, setting up for the first time a special chapter on "special provisions for autonomous vehicles," clarifying that if a problem occurs while the system is activated, the responsible subject is the automaker.

But all of this is premised on L3 autonomous driving.

Everyone should also not forget that the car currently in your hands is still an L2-level assisted driving vehicle, and the "gray zone" under the game of responsibility still exists. During the window period before the L2 mandatory standard takes effect, what must never be absent behind the steering wheel is you, as the first person responsible for safety.

Use assisted functions reasonably, hold awe for the boundaries of technology, and always keep the ultimate control of safety in your own hands, so that every departure can arrive safely at its destination.

Of course we believe in the future of smart driving, and we also believe that domestic smart driving capabilities are evolving rapidly. The path of development is tortuous, and the prospects are bright, but it can make many mistakes, while each of our lives has only one chance. Channel: Cars and Travel. This content comes from the internet, original link. The views only represent the author and do not represent Huxiu's position. If there is any copyright issue, please contact hezuo@huxiu.com, and we will verify and handle it promptly. Everyone who is changing and wants to change the world is on the Huxiu APP[ ]