What happened
David Kidd and colleagues at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) tested automatic emergency braking (AEB) that responds to bicyclists. They used a 2023 Toyota RAV4 and a 2023 Subaru Forester on a track. Toyota writes that the 2023 RAV4 comes standard with Toyota Safety Sense 2.5, whose Pre-Collision System is designed to detect vehicles, pedestrians and bicyclists. The cars approached a bicycle target crossing at 15 km/h at 40, 50 and 60 km/h in daylight. They also approached a slower bicycle target ahead at 50, 60 and 70 km/h by day and at night. The authors report that the AEB systems completely or nearly avoided the bicycle in the daytime crossing tests. They did so with the bicycle ahead by day and at night with high beams. At night with low beams, the systems only marginally reduced speed for the bicycle ahead. The abstract gives the results for both cars together. Traffic Injury Prevention published the study in May 2025. No crash avoided on public roads is reported.
Sources
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Assessment report, by authors with no tie to the system.
Kidd, D. G., Riexinger, L. E., Ricketts, B., Mueller, B. C., Monfort, S. S. and Jermakian, J. S. The crash reduction potential of automatic emergency braking systems that respond to bicyclists. Traffic Injury Prevention, May 2025. Abstract in the IIHS research bibliography.
In controlled evaluations, the AEB systems completely or nearly avoided the bicycle target in the crossing path scenarios during daytime and in parallel path scenarios during daytime and at night with high beams.
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Press release, by the makers. Context or contrary evidence.
The 2023 RAV4 comes standard with Toyota Safety Sense 2.5, Toyota's suite of active safety systems. It includes Pre-Collision System with Pedestrian Detection that features enhancements over the previous generation, including the ability to detect an oncoming vehicle or a pedestrian at intersections when making a turn. The Pre-Collision System is designed to detect vehicles, pedestrians and bicyclists and provide audio/visual alerts and automatic braking in certain conditions.
Details
AI system
- Workflow
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The car approached a bicycle target crossing at 15 km/h at 40, 50 and 60 km/h in daylight. It approached a slower bicycle target ahead at 50, 60 and 70 km/h by day and at night. Toyota fits Toyota Safety Sense 2.5 as standard to the 2023 RAV4.
Follow-up
- Conditions for replication
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At night, the high beams are on, since the systems only marginally reduced speed for a bicycle ahead with low beams. The bicycle crosses the car's path or rides ahead of it, as in the tests.
Entry details
- Sector
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Road vehicle crash avoidance.
- Purpose
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Toyota built the Pre-Collision System of Toyota Safety Sense 2.5 to detect vehicles, pedestrians and bicyclists and to warn the driver and brake automatically in certain conditions.
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Cite this record
Peter H. Vartanian. (2026). Toyota Safety Sense on a RAV4 nearly or fully avoided bicycles by day (AIBD-0980). Artificial Intelligence Benefits Database, edition of 1 November 2026. https://petervartanian.xyz/aibd/records/AIBD-0980.html (archived at https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/AADSII, version 7.0)