One in five drivers in Australia admit that they disable their car's safety features according to the 31st edition of AAMI Crash Index research released in July 2025.
Australian Associated Motor Insurers (AAMI) is an Australian general insurance company and the AAMI Crash Index 2025 released in July 2025 has been compiled through a national survey with a representative sample of 2,007 Australian car drivers aged 18 and above. The survey was conducted in June 2025.
The survey findings reveal that the participating drivers who admitted disabling their car’s safety features often do so for the following reasons:
• Hit the "off" button because they found safety features "annoying", "distracting", and "too sensitive" (69%).
• Believe they "don't need" the assistance of in-car safety features (23%).
• Said they just "don't trust" the safety features (13%).
• The safety features most commonly dialled down or turned off were lane departure warning and lane keeping assist (45%), adaptive cruise control (17%), parking assist (17%), automatic emergency braking (16%) and forward collision warning (11%).
AAMI motor prevention manager Mary Kennedy said, “In-car safety features aren't just gadgets, they're designed to help protect us and make our roads safer. We should be embracing these features, not turning them off.
Ms Kennedy said, "Many of the safety features, the drivers are turning off, like collision warning and automatic emergency braking, are really effective at preventing the crashes.”
She said for more than three decades, the AAMI Crash Index has been educating drivers on the importance of using safe driving habits and avoiding those that lead to accidents.
More than half of the drivers participating in the study (59%) agreed that safety features are proven methods for improving road safety, and that they reduce the severity and frequency of accidents.
AAMI’s claims data also supports this with insights from February 2024 through to February 2025 showing Advanced Driver Assistance Systems enabled vehicles (with autonomous breaking) are less likely to be involved in an accident when compared to vehicles which do not have this technology.