Support Vector Machine used to ID cars vs. scenery

Spanish researchers have built a cruise control system that tries to intelligently avoid other cars on the road. The system distinguishes vehicles from other objects using a SVM (although the article refers to it as "support vector matching," I'm assuming it's the SVM we all know and love.). I notice that the article doesn't really say how well it works:

Sotelo admits it will be crucial to improve the overall reliability of the system in order to persuade people it would work safely. Another key problem is that the system has trouble working in low visibility.

The visibility problem can be solved by adding radar, but it would be nice to have some info on how well it works under even optimal conditions.

Link: http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996471