So it brakes for every bend - without ACC this is called ‘comfort braking’ and I call them BFEBs - so the electronics replicate incompetence . It’s annoying and I quickly get past these sorts of road users.
This is another dangerous feature where the car is allowed the car to make a possible incorrect decision - run into the car in front or get hit by an HGV from behind?
Does nobody check the mirror before hitting the brakes hard these days?
My mate passed on of these Forward Assist type cars sat in lane 2 with nothing in lane 1. He overtook and once he was 12 inches past it he pulled in, the other car didn’t half slow down quick
lol… I’m not sure how carrying out a very dangerous manoeuvre is in any way better. Certainly more dangerous than using designed features while also being aware of what’s going on around you and ready to make any adjustments needed. Features don’t remove the ability to think! I see plenty of people hog the middle lane… I doubt they all use ACC but I agree, I find it annoying as well.
Just overtake in the third lane…. Job done. While annoying it’s not his job to correct other drivers driving habits.
Actually, when passing these people in the third lane, popping the indicator to pull into the middle lane… then popping it on again to pull into the inside lane is normally enough and if not… so what.
You read too many stories of someone losing their temper with a driver only to find they’re a lunatic and someone ends up in hospital or dead. Just drive on and be safe! Not worth it
Totally agree, too many instances of these cameras being inaccurate……and then you need a new windscreen. They need recalibrating by……not the OEM. Daughter knew a guy doing these for dealers etc…….left a lot to be desired imo.
I had a Volvo V70 as a company car a number of years ago. The company car scheme was rather generous and it had lots of driver aids and toys on it.
Adaptable cruise control, lane departure, automatic braking, RADAR, numerous other sensors, to name but a few.
Driving on the M6 in heavy rain one time, I had to turn off all the safety related driver aids.
As the car could see well ahead of itself, all round, knowing the road was clear ahead it wanted to drive at normal speed. However, as I could not see anything past the bonnet, I did not feel safe relying on the car telling me what to do, so switched everything off and went back to traditional driving skills.
Having all this technology is good, but sometimes is not always suitable.
That is a very good point…. While I’d still make use of the features in good weather, within reason (I’ve never liked lane assist) I’ll be sure to turn them off when it’s not! Cheers
Well, it never rains and ain’t never foggy in California, so we are fine here with the driving assisted technologies. Actually, I think both Tesla and Rivian primarily employ radar sensors instead of relying on cameras, so they are less susceptible to bad, rainy weather, although still not perfect in all situations.
Yesterday, I drove 250 miles on my new Rivian, 90% of the driving was taken care by auto pilot with my hands on the wheel, 10% manual because I want to take full control when I entered or exited highways.
My car has lots of assistance options. It also has what is known as ‘driver only’ mode. In that setup vehicle control is in the hands of a blob of jelly that gets tired, distracted, lazy and moody. It is inconsistent and at times unreliable, although convinced of it’s own infallibillity. All vehicles use this system, with varying degrees of experience and using different software versions.
In truth some of the assistance in our Kias is great (ABS and traction control we all take for granted. Top down parking view and sensors, pedestrian and cross traffic warnings, auto cruise, satnav) some is OK at times (lane assist on a motorway, speed warnings on unfamiliar roads, auto-park is hilariously clever if I use it) some I hate (steering assist, attention warning) but all are there to assist the driver and learning what they do and don’t do is part of modern drving. Which is fundamentally done by an unreliable human. I am not sure we are there yet but I suspect automatic systems might prove to be better eventually. At least they wont drive along texting (grrr).
Bruce
Incidentally ‘the satnav/google maps told me it was a 40’ defence now crops up quite a lot when people try to defend a speeding penalty. Good luck with that!
As a Tesla owner, I can confirm that Tesla cars are primarily (but not totally) reliant on cameras and at any given time, it is normal for 2 of them to be non-functioning on our Model Y due to poor visibility caused by direct sunlight (no joke!), rain, fog or condensation on the inside of the camera glass…
Most other manufacturers are aware of the limitations of cameras so rely much more on LIDAR, which does see through the rain much more effectively.
Because that’s the law, if you chose to undertake rather than overtake and actually get spotted doing it by a Traffic Cop (I know its rare to see one) you’ll get a ticket for dangerous driving.
The idiot in the middle lane will also get a ticket if the same cop sees them.
IMHO the problem is that there is no test to confirm that you are capable of driving on a multilane highway, people learn to drive and pass their tests based on single lane roads with maybe a bit of dual carriageway driving if available but show them a 3 or 4 lane highway and some cannot cope and freeze.
A year or two back we were using the M25 heading towards Kent, we could see blue lights up ahead and getting closer quickly, we slowed as we were unsure what was happening, when we caught the cop car up he was trying to pull over a Prius which was going 40 in lane 3 and oblivious to the car behind, as we passed we slowed down and waved at the driver to pull over but to no avail they just carried on.
In the same way that people who live and work in the big cities and never go out into the countryside are terrified when they eventually venture out and find that at night there are no streetlights in the countryside and they have to use their headlights to see, they struggle as they are so use to driving on streets that are well lit.
A weird thing happened to us on the French autoroute a couple of weeks ago. We were driving along in the slow lane - not that slow at about 110, when a car passed very close on the left. The car has cameras all round and obviously noticed the overtaking car, because it shoved us to the right and partly into the hard shoulder. Unlike large parts of the M27 just down the road, it actually had a hard shoulder. If not I imagine we’d have ended up nearly hitting the barrier. It was all most disconcerting. I keep meaning to check the settings before we next go to France in a few weeks. I was asleep and Mrs HH was driving and the lurch woke me with quite a start.
You won’t get a ticket if you undertake in the US. However, you probably would get a ticket if you were spotted doing this in the UK, and very possibly in much of Europe as well.
. It’s annoying and I quickly get past these sorts of road users.
Actually, I think both Tesla and Rivian primarily employ radar sensors instead of relying on cameras, so they are less susceptible to bad, rainy weather, although still not perfect in all situations.
. I am right here in the Bay Area