IMO most features are annoying and contribute to alarm fatigue and driver irritation, but are not directly dangerous.

Lane keep assist though? I often drive on narrow country roads barely wide enough for two cars, with a white line on each side but no center line. To avoid large oncoming cars, I need to drive on the white line to my right. When I do, lane keep assist activates motors in my steering wheel which try to force the car into the oncoming traffic.

Easy to turn on in the modern car I sometimes drive, but oh my god, that was scary the first few times it happened. Beeping at me is bad enough but messing with the steering wheel??? This should be illegal, not required!

I'm mostly pro EU but this crap is genuinely making me resent them.

I almost slammed bicycles in Paris on a few occasions because of that crap. Shift a bit to the left to overtake them, get lane assist slam me back right. Thankfully those were close calls, but only thanks to the cyclist being used to traffic in Paris and having good reflexes.

Any dangerous machine (like a car) must not do anything unexpected out of the driver's control. A lane assist that resists the wheel when trying to get out? Why not, but dangerous. A lane assist that slam you back in the lane? Criminal. (same with anti-collision braking that triggers too strong too early and surprises drivers behind you)

I'm definitely of the opinion that all those features reduce security. The alarm fatigue is real, because the car always finds something to beep at you. Heck, even your hands not being a perfect 10-2 o'clock on the wheel is reason enough on some cars. You quickly ignore the beeps because there are so many reasons for the car to beep it's hard to even understand why.

In all fairness, you should have put your left blinkers on while overtaking the cyclist, and that would have disabled the lane assist.

Literally does not matter at all. The car should not automatically jerk itself into a cyclist.

I agree, and I don't remember whether I had the blinker. I, however, also respectfully disagree as in all fairness we should drive 100% perfectly 100% of the time, but we're humans. Expecting 100% driving all the times is the worst as it puts strain on the driver (I say that as someone that's pretty strict on blinkers).

What is special is one time it was a one way lane next to the tram with a concrete stub down. I wouldn't be surprised if the anti-collision kicked in and applied lane assist even with the blinker.

At any rate, the principle of least surprise still applies: heavy machinery must not jerk unexpectedly to the side. Never ever ever.

Also lane assist typically activates after 50-60 km/h (35 mph). I like the feature because it helped me develop the habit of always using blinkers. Most modern cars also have cyclist detection and crash prevention. So I believe these feature are still much safer than a typical driver looking at his phone.

My car (EU, 2018) makes a noise when I cross a line without using the blinkers but it doesn't actually do anything.

So you happen to be a rare example of someone that buys a new car recently, and you live on a narrow road, and you like to do a semi rare act when wide cars approach. And that has shown you a bit of the EU insanity. Now imagine just how many rules/regulations like this there actually are that you just aren't the aware of. It's insane.

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.

> You really shouldn’t make speeding up to make the light a habit

I agree! In this particular case we were dealing with bumper-to-bumper traffic, a light that takes many minutes, and very few cars making every green light. It took us 20 minutes to wait our turn. I really didn't want to wait for another cycle. 2 more cars rushed behind me.

Like I said: We need rush hour mode

> You really shouldn’t make speeding up to make the light a habit but,

I was restraining myself from saying exactly this :-)

I can't remember where, but I recently drove somewhere and they had posted signs informing drivers that they ticket people who accelerate on yellow lights.

> 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.

> The centering will continuously nudge you towards what it decides is the center of your lane.

This. It's not just beeping; if it thinks you're moving too close to the edge of the lane, it will steer the car to the other side. The only way for me to prevent doing it is by gripping the steering wheel like crazy. Who the hell drives like that?!

No, having to fight the car just to stay put is a failure of the tech.

IIRC, this is a 2022 model, so hopefully the tech has improved since.

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.)

I remember driving a Ford rental I was given when my car was being repaired that had the same issue with emergency stopping when it absolutely shouldn't be.

I wonder if you could successfully sue if that "safety" feature actively crashed you into an oncoming vehicle. Seems like that ought to be treated as entirely the fault of the manufacturer.

In the EU surely not worth it. You probably at most get the money back for a new car. Just like when somehow it turns out someone was mistakenly put in jail and later it is found out, they only get money they would have earned working back, and their freedom and their forever tarnished reputation is valued at zero.

iirc there was an incident not too long ago where a van crashed head on when trying to pass another truck on a 2 way road. The lane assist put the van back into the passing lane when he tried to get back into right lane, causing the collision.

That's like the jurisdictions that put rumble strips on the white line and not further into the shoulder. Very frustrating for ordinary cornering.

Why would ordinary cornering need to use the shoulder?

>IMO most features are annoying and contribute to alarm fatigue and driver irritation, but are not directly dangerous.

I agree but the "standard" for car/transportation discussions as set by the screeching morons is that indirect Nth order consequences count, so by their own rules it's dangerous even if only barely noticeable at the statistical level by torturing the data.

>IMO most features are annoying and contribute to alarm fatigue and driver irritation, but are not directly dangerous.

I agree but the "standard" for car/transportation discussions as set by the screeching morons is that 3rd and 4th order consequences count, so by their own rules it's dangerous even if only barely noticeable at the statistical level by torturing the data.

It may be possible to change the default with an OBD programmer.

Isn't that just cultural? Go to a German or French website and you'll be met with a big popover with a bunch of options, half a page of legalese, and some buttons. Pick a Japanese site and you'll get a maximal amount of information packed together. Pick an American site and you'll get the heavy on the whitespace layout. Seems to be the cultural aesthetic choice.

> to the point of making driving less safe...

But they make it less safe in a hard to measure poorly defined way whereas they make it safer in a measured easy to take credit for way.

The safety industry (or whoever, not really sure exactly who's benefitting here) destroying $2 of value to put $1 in their pockets. Textbook example of economic broken windows.

My toyota has one that when you're in a narrow road with parked cars that you must drive around, it constantly thinks it's going to do a frontal collision. Except it detects it like half a second too late, when I've already avoided the parked car (this happens at rather slow speeds).

How many bells would sound if SUNGLASSES hid your eyes?!

In my experience (Tesla), attention monitoring works well even when I'm wearing sunglasses. The camera can still see my eyes even through dark polarised lenses.

It may depend on the sunglasses, however - other people report problems with sunglasses that have mirrored lenses etc.

Sometimes I wonder if Tesla also has a much better software stack than most other manufacturers. IIRC, Tesla has had interior cameras in their cars for years now and I haven't heard about major issues stemming from it.

The camera was not actually used initially. With the old Autopilot software, attention monitoring was (and still is?) exclusively done with steering wheel torque sensors. Our camera got enabled when we purchased the FSD upgrade. I do agree the software is good, however: it's both more effective and much less naggy/annoying than the old "hands on wheel" method.

It still falls back on the torque sensor (requiring hands on wheel) if it thinks you're not paying enough attention, or if it can't see your eyes for whatever reason.

And I guess Tesla must have enabled the camera for all new vehicles now, at least in Europe, given that it's required.

Wow, I did not know that! Thanks for the clarification, that is actually decently well thought out.

It's a matter of time before someone invents sunglasses with eyes painted on the lenses.

I can answer this, since I have a new car with this camera and polarized sunglasses.

MOST of the time it's good about telling when I'm looking and when I'm not, out of maybe... 5 alerts over the previous 8 months all, but one occurred when I was in fact looking away for one reason or another. Likewise when it's correct my lane-keeping it's been right about me drifting.

Given how inattentive I see other drivers being, on their phones for example, and taking into account that I'm (based on my record) a good driver who is attentive... I appreciate these additions. I doubt that they make us less safe, we just dislike anyone or anything telling us how to drive, because "we already know what we're doing." The subjective experience of being distracted however isn't usually so clear-cut, it FEELS like you're paying attention.

Note: This is a new model Lexus, so I expect this represents that brand as well as Toyota, but beyond that I don't know.

Just because it's available in a Lexus does not mean it's available in a Corolla

In Europe it does. ADDW is required in all new vehicles, including Corollas.

There is no way that training people not to worry is making us all safer. I don't even like how new cars have this thing where they will automatically hold the brake once stopped even if you let go. There is no way it's a net good to train people that running cars just stay where you put them like an inert object does.

The GP seems to be describing "auto hold", which is a different feature from hill start assist, and is newer and less prevalent.

OK. But it's essentially the same concept. Just that auto hold will go a step further and apply the park brake to hold the car in position indefinitely rather than just for a few seconds.

There have been many deaths over the years where drivers forgot to engage the park brake, then stepped out and got run over by their own vehicle. Including, sadly, Star Trek actor Anton Yelchin. If his car had had Auto Hold then he would very likely still be alive today.

The only scenario where this could have a negative effect on safety is where you, the driver, were used to driving a car with the feature but got surprised by its absence when driving an old car. But as I facetiously illustrated in the post above, this is not a valid argument against new safety features. Any accidents that this scenario might cause are far outweighed by all the ones that will be prevented in the long run.

Nowadays cars engage the electronic parking brake (and P on the gear selector) when you open the door. Which has caused another crash, there's a video of a lady stuck at a rail crossing who was screaming she couldn't get the car going, she had opened the door and in the panic didn't notice the car did all that.

Anton Yelchin's death was more annoying, it was a design defect that pushing the gear lever all the way to the top didn't put it into P (like cars of the 80s, of even 50s), the gear lever acted more like a 4-way button, and drivers needed to push it twice (or 3x?) to go to park. Unfortunately his car was probably not new enough to have auto-park when driver door is open. His family got a settlement from the manufacturer..

The result for me has been pretty predictable, I'm getting a kind of corrective feedback so I drive in a way that prevents that feedback. The practical result is that imo I'm a better driver, I'm more aware of my lapses in attention, my tendency to overcorrect to the right, and so on.

I'm yet to experience a downside, this isn't like using "Autopilot" or some other situation where a machine is taking over for me. I don't see why our skills or caution would be lessened by exposure to realtime feedback.