Comment by gib444
6 hours ago
N.B. I didn't write /all/ were "broken and dangerous"
But some personal examples:
- Auto high beam assist saw a car at a side junction, turned off high beam, then turned back on, mimicking a 'flash' to let the car out, which they acted on by pulling out. I had to brake hard to avoid them. I was doing 60 mph
- I was on the motorway and a stranded vehicle was on the hard shoulder and the driver decided to exit from the side closest to my lane. I went to move over slightly to give space and avoid him, and the lane assist pushed me back towards him (there was too much traffic for me to change lanes)
- Driving in built-up areas with lots of parked cars and narrow sections, the collision avoidance has pre-activated with huge beeping warnings that massively distracted me, causing me to actually nearly hit something
These were all different modern (but not high end) vehicles
Auto cruise control doesn't take into account vehicles in other lanes etc. It encourages disengagement in dangerous situations/surroundings. It is by definition dangerous
edit: and speed sign detection is probably the most broken. The constant beeping and flashing. I mean, I don't have to explain that do I? Distraction -> danger.
PSA: Flashing someone is never a signal that you're giving them priority. That is explicitly forbidden in the highway code and dangerous. Flashing someone, like using the horn, only means "I'm here, just in case you didn't see me". If someone flashes you, you should make your own determination whether it is safe to perform a manoeuvre, making no assumptions about anything that the person who flashed you might be seeming to be promising.
> PSA: Flashing someone is never a signal that you're giving them priority.
Uh. I guess you've not many US highway miles under your belt. If nothing else, it's a very common nighttime signal to let passing truckers know that they've room to get back in the rightmost lane. I can't imagine that the signalling situation is much different in other places that have a large population of generally-decently-skilled drivers.
> If someone flashes you, you should make your own determination whether it is safe to perform a manoeuvre...
Sure. The operator of a vehicle is ultimately the person who's responsible for its safe operation.
Having said that, few drivers are interested in killing their fellow travelers. Especially at night, determining the "time of arrival" of oncoming traffic, or the distance between the end of your bigass trailer and traffic behind you can be quite difficult. If it's customary in your area to use headlight flashing to indicate to traffic ahead of you that it's safe for them to perform whatever maneuver that they may be uncertain about, then it's not unreasonable to assume that the driver that uses that signal isn't attempting to kill you with misinformation.
Automatic high-beam-togglers don't really care about anything, [0] so that's definitely one piece of malfunctioning tech that makes the roads less safe.
[0] ...yet!