- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
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This article is 2/3 fluff. The majority is about convenience features, not safety.
That said, I recently moved from a ~15 year old car to a modern one, and have driven several newer models with the features described.
Adaptive cruise: it‘s often poorly designed. It brakes far too rapidly and abruptly should traffic or a car ahead slow, and there‘s absolutely no reason to apply as much throttle as it does should it decide acceleration is appropriate. Also for uphill driving the cruise control often drops into far too low a gear in order to maintain speed. It‘s more of a nuisance than an aid, and it‘s even worse if traffic increases or you‘re in a lane with jackasses that can‘t maintain a steady speed. Adaptive cruise attracts idiots, too. The new versions will stay engaged and slow to a complete stop. If the driver has set the following distance to maximum the car will stop with a 4-5 car distance from the car ahead. They‘re treating it like some kind of autopilot that will run the car for them.
Lanekeeping: there‘s a huge span of quality here. Some are shit, some are far too aggressive, some are “jerky” following a segmented plotted line rather than a smoother curve. They can overcorrect and really make for an unstable drive attempting to counter intentional driver input. Some “give up” and disengage with little warning, the audible alerts are often weak. Some briefly follow merge, exit, or widening lines for an additional lane pointing you off the road before they get confused and disengage with the car pointed in an unsafe direction.
Auto braking: in my experience it has engaged every time when I was already braking, or engaged when there was no need to brake. The few times I thought it should have engaged, it didn’t. It’s a nuisance at best, ineffective at worst.
Reverse cameras don’t provide a full picture and are awful in developing driver proprioception about the dimensions of their car. They’re fine for what’s immediately behind you, but use of mirrors and looking around is far better for backing out and looking for approaching people or cars. That said, I love the “360°” view ones. Those are great for centering oneself in a parking space.
So I completely understand why drivers don’t use them. They’re often low-quality, inappropriate overcorrections for the situation, and make for a worse ride and potentially even detrimental to safety. That’s saying a lot considering the quality of a lot drivers on the road today.
I run 80% of the time with adaptive cruise and lanekeeping off. I can’t disable the autobrake, if I could I would.
I can’t back up my own driveway with “maneuvering assist” enabled or it slams on the brakes every time it gets close to a completely harmless fern on the passenger side. Every time it happens it’s so infuriating that I could actually scream. So it’s now off.
Yeah, same. And this article is playing like thats on us.
I turn off all that shit for one reason: too many electronic nannies mean less attention is required to drive. I rarely even use old cruise control.
When I was in Australia last year I was overwhelmed by how much modern cars beep at you. The worst offender by far was a 2025 Kia Carnival that had different beeps for every possible thing the system might label a driving error.
It was more distracting than helpful to be honest.
So glad my 2019 car is a standard but still has CarPlay.
Like, CarPlay is about the most “smart” feature I need/want. I just want a good map and the ability to play podcasts and listen to music easily. That’s it.
Since it’s a standard the car couldn’t get any of the “smart” features I didn’t want anyway.
I’ll drive the car, thanks.
This is me too with my 2020 Crosstrek. A little screen for the backup camera that also shows the navigation and Spotify from my phone. No lane monitoring or any of that stuff. And I do like deciding when I want to shift.
Heh, mine is a 2019 Crosstrek, so, yeah, I understand.
I have a car from 2020 with most of the “modern” safety features. I have most of them off, but I do like the radar cruise control, makes long trips less stressful since it will adapt to traffic in front of me.
One interesting finding relates to driving modes. While almost all new cars have them, just 27.3 percent of respondents say they regularly use their vehicle’s driving mode. Those aged 25 to 34 were more likely to use them, at 38.3 percent.
so what, all these people are always driving in reverse…??
The lane keeper fucks up and tries to drive on the shoulder, driver turns it off, research group acts surprised that it’s turned off
I had a few times where my lane assist thinks I’m turning when coming up on a left turn lane for some reason.
I’m never turning that shit off though. I’ll deal with the random beeps and resistance if I get too close to the line or something.
I remember reading a reddit thread a couple years ago where someone legitimately asked “what if there’s a bicyclist on the road?” I replied with the proper precautions to take when that happens, and the same dumbass replied with “but the beeps are annoying if I try to go over the line when lane assist is on!”
I was driving home from the dealership after buying my last car, and the second I felt the wheel jerk out of my hands to take a corner on the highway differently than I typically do (I still stay in the lane, ofc), that shit got turned off and will never be reenabled. One of the most dangerous things is the car doing something unexpected while someone is driving and they try to correct/overcorrect for it out of shock/surprise and cause a crash.
Yeah this happened to me too when I drove my ex’s car. Cars should not be jerking the wheel. The sensors are notoriously inaccurate at sunrise/sunset when the sun is glaring right in the sensors, and it causes glitches. Especially in wet conditions where the road is slippery and there’s reflected glare as well… almost spun out from that shit once when I tried to turn and the car said NOPE and jerked me back into the straight lane. This was with indicators, mind you.
I also remember one time we were driving on the freeway and the car suddenly spotted an “invisible fake ghost pedestrian”, and SLAMMED on the brakes. Like screeching halt from 80kmph (50mph) in the middle of the busy road. Dunno how on earth we didn’t cause an accident; the people behind us were locked in or something.
Never drove that car again, fuck that. My ex likes that unruly beast for some reason; though they also liked horse riding, which features vehicles that are similarly unpredictable and dangerous, so I suppose it makes sense. I’m ok with beeping, that’s fine and a sensible warning feature I can choose to ignore if it’s wrong. I’m not ok with the car wrenching control of the vehicle out of my hands
I was driving a rental car with that feature once and it recognized one of those big arrows on the ground (that show a lane is ending e.g.) as side lanes. It was on a fast street with multiple lanes, so I was going over 100 km/h and the car jerked the steering wheel towards the goddamn wall and out of the lane. IDK what would’ve happened if I didn’t react in time…
In our car, there’s three levels of lane assist.
- Hey, try to stay in the lines. If you start to veer, the steering wheel will do the smallest corrections and vibrate a lot.
- The car will actively help keep you in the middle of the lane. (I mostly turn this on if I’m swapping my prescription glasses for sunglasses, then it goes right off again).
- Same as #2, but if you put on a turn signal to change lanes the car auto changes when it’s clear. (If you put your signal on with all this off and a car is in your blind spot it freaks out with beeps and vibrations).
I fucking hate #3. The only good part is it forces you to turn on the turn indicator. It both wants your hands on the wheel for the maneuver, but also will cancel the change if it feels any “driver correction”.
There are two roads mine is always trying to turn down on my way home from work. I keep meaning to go that route during a not busy time of day to see if it actually makes the turn if I don’t stop it or if it will just jog to the right a bit.
There are a bunch of black squiggly lines on the road from repairs and it gets confused there.
I turn it on when I’m on the highway. In the city, our roads are way too fucked up for it to work.
I also have an auto emergency brake, and that’s gone off when it doesn’t need to once or twice, but I’m not disabling that one. I’d rather get rear-ended than hit someone.
But if you indicate like your supposed to there are no beeps when crossing lines.
These guys are idiots that complain about the end results of not knowing how to drive themselves.
Exactly. I ended up just asking if they even took Driver’s Ed
The safety tech is not mature enough, simple as. People turn it off because of the false positives and general nagging behavior
This is the correct answer. Most of this stuff is half baked at best.
For me they have often created a more dangerous situation than the one I was already working on unfucking
Really depend on the safety tech. My partner’s Honda Civic is so bad, that turning off CMBS (Collision Mitigation Braking System) and LKAS (Lane Keep Assist System) is essential to operating the car safely, as accidentally leaving these systems on has almost wrecked the car on more than one occasion. Meanwhile, the same systems on my fake Mustang work great. Sometimes backing out of the driveway, it will panic and warn me that I might crash into the ground, but it doesn’t slam the brakes. The hands-free driving is actually really good, and a feature I would continue to use if it wasn’t several hundred dollars a year. In comparison to Honda, Ford’s safety tech is much more predictable and reliable.
This is my personal experience with two cars that I drive relatively frequently, so other people may have other opinions and experiences that are completely valid.
God, every time.
Lane keep assist. Don’t tell me how to drive my own car.
You can’t even show me the right speed limit due a sign on a different road that say 5MPH, when I’m on a 30MPH road, and suddenly you start beeping at me cause I’m going too fast?
Randomly flashing up the BRAKE! Warning for no reason at all?
None of this tech works correctly, and until it does, it all gets turned off every single time 8 start the engine.
Lane assist that pulls you into a pothole you moved over to dodge and loses its collective shit if the lines change.
Collision detection that flips out and hits the brakes to avoid a car that just completed its turn.
Blind spot monitoring that screams at you in a turn lane.
One car couldn’t tell the difference between open sky and the backside of clean white truck so it accelerated to get to the speed limit. Maybe clean trucks were not in the training data.
You can’t even show me the right speed limit due a sign on a different road that say 5MPH, when I’m on a 30MPH road, and suddenly you start beeping at me cause I’m going too fast?
Insurance company using police report: “Sorry, your rates are going up because you were going 25MPH over the speed limit. What were you thinking?”
A place has a sign with 5 ton max weight. One car I had would always see that as 5 kph speed limit. Systems can be stupid like that.
Lane assist almost crashed me once. Lines were painted over as the lanes were rerouted due to a construction. This must have confused the system, as it tried to pull me into the concrete wall to the right.
I stopped and turned it off at the next gas station. Never again
The speed limit warning beep is fine if it’s just once on speed limit update or when you go above, so at least you can make your own judgement.
Not sure what feature you have that flashes the BRAKE! warning, only I one I know of is the collision detection one that makes a warning sound that is quite reliable.
I never had problems with the collision detection (flashing BRAKE), up until I drove a Fiat 500e recently. It seems to differ by make and model I guess.
That Fiat was insanely obnoxious though: It plays a very loud DING and flashes the entire dash red, even if you’re going quite slow and can literally come to a complete stop with enough space between you and the car in front, just by taking your feet off the pedals and using regenerative braking.
I drove it once and I got that warning like five times. Never had it before with Ford, Opel, Renault, …I’ve driven the Renault 4 a couple of times now as a rental, and it has the absolute worst combination of driver attention detection and beeps. It’ll beep randomly for … something, you look at the dash and then it’ll beep because you’re not looking at the road. Or god forbid you look in the mirror, instant warning beeps. Definitely never getting a Renault after dealing with that.
- adaptive cruise control
- AR HUD
- driving mode
None of these were meant to save lives
Also, both lane assist and auto emergency brakes are mostly poorly implemented. Even the ones that aren’t really bad don’t fare well with the chaos of the roads.
Also, voice assistant is bullshit. You know what would be better? That’s right, physical buttons.
I was driving a newer Skoda on vacation last winter and the windshield started fogging up as I was passing through a narrow little village in blowing rain bordering on snow. In my car at home (and probably most of the cars ever made) there are three knobs to control the heat which can be operated by purely tactile means. In this particular car, I had to go through pages of menus with no tactile feedback on the touchscreen while driving. I was only seconds away from having to stick my head out the window and limp it to the next safe stopping spot. I am glad it didn’t happen on the motorway at 140km/h. Who thought this was smart? The only modern car I drove that didn’t suck was a Mazda with their multi-axis joystick and physical climate controls. The touch screen disables at speed and the tactile joystick is a comparative delight. The display sticks out of the top of the dash so when you are looking at it you can still see the road beyond it.
My partner and I test drove a Honda with no volume knob. You have to use the touch screen. Wtf? I am so glad we didn’t buy that car. I now have two base model standard transmission cars, mid-2010s, neither of which suck and both of which are in good condition. Never gonna trade these cars in. Not even for a Bentley!
I have a 2020 CX5 and really appreciate the physical buttons. I like the dial as well. They went to touch screen for the 2026 model though and removed the dial. Dumb.
Lane keep drives me of the fucking road when it’s sunny and the cameras can’t see straight.
Automatic braking loses it because of shadows but misses the goddamn elk.
I really love adaptive cruise, but i can see how many people (especially with lane centring) tune out - and make it a liability.
What most people don’t do is drive many vehicles. The difference between safety features on cars - and it’s not always price that is the differentiator - is staggering. Stability control isn’t the same between a Toyota and a BMW. Not halfway. A $90,000 GM and a $15,000 smart car are generations apart - the smart wins, at least on traction control. Unfortunately it’s not easy to test all these features empirically.
It’s no wonder people turn it off.
My favorite was when a car runs a yellow light at the same time I ease my foot off the brake to get the engine started in preparation for going forward. The autostart and brake assist had a little tiff of errors and stalled the vehicle… I had to turn the engine off and restart it to reset it.
That was great.
So lane assist is off, adaptive cruise control is off, driver attention is off (with some electrical tape over the fucking stupid thing) and brake assist is off. The only things on is the blind spot monitoring because that sort of works and the backup camera.
Last time I was had a rental car, I was driving down a rural curvy road with no traffic. So I cut the corners whenever visibility allowed it. The computer freaked the fuck out and finally turned off after tossing a “Maintenance needed error”. I laughed my ass off over that one.
If your talking about the auto stop/start that happened when you push the brake down at the lights you should 100% disable this.
They implemented it thinking it would be great that you would be not burning fuel and emissions for 30s while the lights were red but in reality what happens is that as soon as the engine stops your oil pressure drops, then your restarting with no oil in the cylinder and that causes an extreme amount of wear on your piston rings and other components. I dont remember the exact figure but starting and stopping while the oil pressure is low is responsible for like ~90% of engine wear.
Depending on how many lights you encounter you could be doing exponentially more basically cold starts and your going to need to service your car much more often, replace the oil and filter, replace other components that wear (+ costs of increased servicing) just to save a couple minutes of idling emissions and fuel. I can tell you which is much worse for the environment.
There is a german channel on youtube that literally did this as a lab test with a real engine to show how much extra wear was happening to your engine. The system was a ‘good on paper’ idea but they overlooked some key factors i think.Nope. They have an electric oil pump that keeps working when the engine is off. It’s not a cold start, an electric motor turns the engine to top dead centre and fires the plug on a hot engine .
Are you talking about the CVT oil pump? Or have some manufacturers started doing doing this on the engine oil pump?
Edit:
Well i looked it up myself and it seems that newer cars, especially more expensive cars have addresed the wear issues by upgrading the crankshaft bearing, hardened internal components, upgraded altenator and a specific type of battery for this use. (No mention of electric oil pump motors for average cars)You also need to replace the (more expensive) battery every 3-5 years, so the cost is still comong back to you. Higher quality upgraded components + the more expensive and often replaced battery will all end up back on your pocket, like i said the system probably isnt worth the cost of the fuel and emissions savings.
And if you have an older car with this function, then you also have the component wear issues, see the video i mentioned in the first comment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qu8cJ2t_ja8&pp=ygUpYXV0byBzdG9wIHN0YXJ0IGVuZ2luZSB3ZWFyIHRlc3RlZCBnZXJtYW4%3D
“Safety tech”. OK. I was visiting a mate in the states, and the rental gave me a Nissan. Apparently, there’s a lot of construction going on in that state, and the Nissan tried to literally run me, at 100kmh, into a median, because it recognized the (clearly) scratched off lane markers and not the (clearly) newly painted lane markers. I had to use nearly all my upper body strength (whatever little of it I had left after a 13hr trip), to force the wheel to the left and away from death. And that fucker bitched at me the entire time! would have 100% died. All because of their fucking “safety” tech. I turned that shit off as soon as I parked. All of it. I’m still so angry at them for that shit.
I hate lane assist, its so irritating. Worst thing is: in my skoda you cant turn it off for good, every time you shut of the engine it resets to default, which means lane assist on.
After my skirt with death because of this thing, it’s a ‘no sale’ feature.
Lane assist is only good on highways. Everywhere else it’s a detriment.
Even on a highway it tried to kill me once by steering into a truck I was overtaking…have it turned off ever since.
I hate it even on highways. Some cars assist is gentle and more of a ‘hey be careful’ reminder which is the best option and the one I can get behind but others have an aggressive ‘you have to fight me’ attitude even if your indicators are on. Those can burn in hell.
Only good on good highways. If you’re dodging potholes and road debris it’s fucking annoying.
What you mean a bunch of bells and chimes and warning lights happening every time the road markings are ambiguous isn’t helpful?
I have driven some number of hundred thousand miles and departed the highway once to avoid an oncoming semi and 0 times for any other reason. I have operated a vehicle with lane assist turned on for some 10s of miles and they have attempted to take control to depart my lane/the highway a handful of times, which results in me parking the vehicle and figuring out how to turn it off.
