The levels of continuous vehicle automation have become common knowledge. They facilitate overall understanding of the issue. Yet, continuous vehicle automation described therein does not cover “automated driving” as a whole:​ Functions intervening temporarily in accident-prone situations can obviously not be classified by means of continuous levels.

Continuous automation describes the shift in workload from purely human driven vehicles to full automation. Duties of the driver are assigned to the machine as automation levels rise. Emergency braking, e.g., is obviously discontinuous and intensive automation. It cannot be classified under this regime. The resulting absence of visibility of these important functions cannot satisfy – especially in the light of effect they take on traffic safety.

Therefore, in order to reach a full picture of vehicle automation, a comprehensive approach is proposed that can map out different characteristics as “Principle of Operation” at top level. On this basis informing and warning functions as well as functions intervening only temporarily in near-accident situations can be described.

To reach a complete picture, levels for the discontinuous, temporarily intervening functions are proposed – meant to be the counterpart of the continuous levels already in place. This results in a detailed and independent classification for accident-prone situations. This finally provides for the visibility these important functions deserve.