Self-Driving Cars May Be Risky for People With Head Injuries, Study Finds

A new study warns that self-driving cars could be more dangerous for people who have had head injuries. Scientists tested ice hockey players who had suffered concussions and found they were slower to grab the wheel when the car needed help. The study was published in a journal called Traffic Injury Prevention and came out in August 2026.

Self-driving cars can handle a lot of driving on their own, but they are not fully automatic. In tricky situations — like construction zones or when people are walking across the road — a human driver needs to take over. Researchers wanted to know if everyone would be able to do that quickly and safely.

Scientists at Binghamton University in New York ran the experiment. They had two groups of people use a driving simulator, which is like a very realistic video game that feels like real driving. One group had 17 ice hockey players who had a history of concussions, and the other group had 17 people of about the same age who did not play contact sports.

After one hour of simulated driving, big differences showed up between the two groups. The hockey players did not feel more stressed, and they did just as well on memory and thinking tests. However, when the simulator required them to take over driving quickly, the athletes were noticeably slower to respond.

The hockey players successfully took control of the car only 81% of the time. The non-athlete group succeeded 93% of the time. The players also had a harder time staying in control once they took over, and they struggled more to answer questions about what had just happened on the road.

Researcher Chao Shi explained why this matters. She said the players were less likely to predict what would happen next — for example, whether more cars were coming or whether they needed to slow down. That slower thinking, she said, showed up directly in how they drove.

Researcher Vipul Lugade pointed out that many people think self-driving cars will let them fully relax. But that is not quite true yet. Drivers still need to be ready to jump back in at any moment, and not everyone may be able to do that fast enough to stay safe.

The researchers believe that self-driving car systems need to be improved to better handle differences between drivers. They also suggested that driver training programs and license tests could be updated. That way, people with different brain abilities would be better prepared to drive these new kinds of vehicles safely.