Comment by BeetleB
1 day ago
Can't you turn that feature off?
I often complain about the lack of buttons, but my car actually has a dedicated button to turn this safety feature off.
IIRC, veering from the lane is the cause of most collisions, so it makes sense to have this.
> IIRC, veering from the lane is the cause of most collisions, so it makes sense to have this.
My dad's Toyota has this. The issue is it seems to have a hard time actually centering itself in the lane, so it'll just sway from side to side like a drunk driver if the lane is somewhat narrow.
And you can forget about driving on secondary roads, which usually don't have markings on the sides. It'll keep trying to drive in the middle of the road. It's also extremely dangerous to try to correct your trajectory when there's an oncoming car on one of these roads where two cars barely fit, and you have to basically drive on the shoulder.
Then there's the collision detection thing. It's basically guaranteed to beep at me whenever I enter my parents' narrow street with cars parked on both sides.
Bonus points for it just beeping whenever it's unhappy about something, without having any kind of "log". So if you don't look at the instrument cluster at the exact moment it beeps, you'll have no idea what it wanted. I know about the "imminent collision" one because I saw the dashboard turn red from the corner of my eye and immediately complained to my dad about it. Apparently it does it pretty often when he's maneuvering in and out of the garage.
Now, I know many people drive without paying any kind of attention to traffic, which is obviously very dangerous. But I'm not convinced these systems are that useful if people get used to ignoring them.
> Then there's the collision detection thing. It's basically guaranteed to beep at me whenever I enter my parents' narrow street with cars parked on both sides.
Some of my worst driving experiences have been with collision detection + auto brake.
You try to enter a narrow steep hill driveway and it slams on the brakes with half your car hanging out into [potentially] oncoming traffic. Thanks, car
Or you try to speed up across a wide open intersection because the light is about to turn and it slams on the brakes because there's cars on the other side waiting for the next light down the block. Plenty of room to stop after you've cleared the intersection mind you, but hte car really really doesn't like that you sped up from 25mph to 31mph when it thinks you should be slowly coasting to a stop.
On the other hand, driving a motorcycle, I love other people's auto brake. Makes lane splitting (at reasonable speed deltas) easier because every Tesla will tap the brakes when you cut into its lane.
Anyway, I wish driving assists had rush our mode. They're pretty decent in average conditions but ho boy tightly packed aggressive rush hour traffic is hell in a modern car. So much beeping and constantly fighting with the assists.
You really shouldn’t make speeding up to make the light a habit but, I get it, there are certainly times where that’s the safer option than slamming on the brakes.
Fun when your car makes you do both at once.
3 replies →
> My dad's Toyota has this. The issue is it seems to have a hard time actually centering itself in the lane, so it'll just sway from side to side like a drunk driver if the lane is somewhat narrow.
Newer cars (or other cars) do a better job of this. Mine doesn't do the ping pong - it really does keep it centered.
However, the point is that it should direct you back into the lane and you're supposed to take over. If it's ping ponging, it's because you as the driver are letting it.
> Then there's the collision detection thing. It's basically guaranteed to beep at me whenever I enter my parents' narrow street with cars parked on both sides.
Is this detecting at the corners and not the front? For example, my old 2016 car has collision detection, but it will only detect if something is in front of you head on. With my newer car, it's checking the corners. Still, I get the warning only when parking. And I can turn it off.
> But I'm not convinced these systems are that useful if people get used to ignoring them.
Agreed. I think some manufacturers do a better job than others, though.
The person you're replying to mentioned a Toyota, which I also drive a newer model of. It has two modes: lane assist (which works like you have described) and lane centering (which automatically is enabled when you switch on cruise control). The centering will continuously nudge you towards what it decides is the center of your lane.
It's awful and I've trained myself to automatically long press the button on the steering wheel to disable the entire system every time I get behind the wheel.
1 reply →
Most highway exits in Ontario, Canada and some part of the US have highway exit ramps where the right lane widens into two, one exiting and one continuing. The two lanes are not marked until the buffer before the exit. What you have is essentially one widening lane.
The cruise control in my Hyundai is tied to the lane centering feature and this keeps forcing me onto exit ramps i do not intend to take. One time, it was quite aggressive during rain. The lane keep feature does not handle off-ramps in Ontario well at all.
The problem with these "safety" features is that they do not work reliably and do not handle edge cases well.
To be clear, I'm not talking about auto lane centering. That's something else. The Nissan has this too, but it has to be manually enabled and although it seems to work alright, I just feel like as a driver, it's my responsibility to control the wheel.
What I'm talking about is lane keep assist, which is a "safety" feature which beeps at you and jerks the wheel when the car thinks you're veering out of your lane.
You can't turn it off, you can temporarily disable it but it gets enabled again the next time you get in the car.
Regardless, I feel like maybe "suddenly automatically jerk the steering wheel to drive into oncoming traffic" mode should maybe be off by default? Although it would definitely make me less angry if it could be turned off.
A "feature" like this can easily kill someone in some of the sketchy mountain roads I've been on in Crete.
Mine can be turned off. Three menu items deep, at each and every start of the car. No preferences.
I simply disabled the camera and radar. The car was unsafe. Did I mention it emergency braked all the time, for no reason? No, it wasn't me, and almost getting rear ended all the time gets old fast.
These systems are far too immature for use.
What car? My Kia has dedicated buttons. It's three presses.
It's a Ford, with almost no physical buttons.
(I edited my comment adding the word deep, to indicate it is 3 clicks deep. Very annoying.)
1 reply →