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You’ve driven through intersections countless times daily without incident, but, it happens to be one of the most dangerous things you can do behind the wheel. Second only to rear-end collisions in terms of frequency, intersection crashes account for about 50% of crashes, according to the Federal Highway Administration.    Considering that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that more than 96% of intersection crashes involve driver error or inattention, and just over 3% are the result of vehicle malfunctions or environmental conditions, nearly all intersection crashes are avoidable. It comes down to knowing what to look for and preparing your response to each of those situations.

For the past decade, engineers have been working hard to make the dream of a driverless car a reality. With the quiet launch of Google’s Waymo project in 2009, the race was on to develop and deploy vehicles that would do everything a human-piloted vehicle would do — but to do it better. The promises surrounding autonomous vehicles, or AVs, have been big and bold. In 2012, Google co-founder Sergey Brin announced his plan to have AVs on the road “within five years or sooner.” In 2016, Lyft CEO John Zimmer proclaimed that self-driving vehicles would be so prevalent by 2025 that automobile ownership would be nearly obsolete. All of the major auto manufacturers have announced plans for AVs and invested heavily in their development. Although the idea of vehicles that don’t need a human at the wheel was alarming for most drivers, it initially sounded like a great opportunity for businesses. AVs would eliminate the expenses associated with hiring and retaining qualified drivers, reduce the risk of crashes, which lowers liabilities to the company and it would give businesses a vehicle that, unlike a human operator, doesn’t need rest or breaks However, the reality of driverless cars has failed to deliver on those original promises. In the past few years, hiccups and slowdowns have shown a widening gap between what originally was proposed and what could actually happen. Now, it seems that AV developers are nowhere close to having AVs sharing the road. At the recent International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, tech companies showcased innovations that stepped away from previous claims and displayed scaled-back visions of the future. Instead of sleek driverless pods zipping through traffic, the first AVs in action will most likely be robot shuttles and taxi services that travel a predetermined route at a relatively low speed, according to The Wall Street Journal. Driverless cars will eventually share our roads, but it’s becoming more evident that the predicted takeover of human drivers isn’t right around the corner. Here are five factors that have helped hit the brakes on autonomous vehicles.

Any company that hires drivers has many different safety considerations. Regardless of whether those drivers are piloting heavy haul vehicles or four-door sedans, the core concern of the company is the same: how to create a culture of safe driving. Driver safety affects every aspect of a company’s operations, whether they realize it or not, says Brendan T. Monaghan, J.D., Vice President of BXS Insurance in Little Rock, AR. The way a company is perceived as a whole is often shaped by how the public views their drivers, and that can have a direct impact on the bottom line.

Preventing crashes and fatalities related to large vehicles such as trucks and buses is at the heart of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s mission. With the creation of its CSA (Compliance, Safety, Accountability) program, the FMCSA rolled out a way to identify carriers that present the greatest safety risks and help these carriers take steps to correct their actions. The program uses a points-based system to create CSA scores for every motor carrier, even owner-operators. The scores help make both drivers and motor carriers more accountable for safety, and spell out what actions should be taken for carriers to improve.