If you have a truck close behind you and white van man or suchlike cuts you up to reach the exit you well have a shorter car and fewer occupants.
What happens with lane guidance when an obstruction such as a cyclist or horse comes into view?
A bloke stepped off the pavement walked round the back of his van to climb in as I was approaching on slightly curved road, my car flashed a big red warning on dash and slammed the brakes on, even though he hadn’t stepped directly in front of me.
Frightened the life out of me, fortunately nothing behind. Only ever happened the once. But once was enough!
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Our son has a X3 and X5 both tug so hard if you touch the lane that’s it’s distracting at best. We have the same system in our Touareg and it’s nowhere near as severe.
The ‘lane assist’ system in my Audi is very poor. I disable it every time, immediately after starting the engine.
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That’s odd both are VW brands you’d think the system would be the same.
The lane system on my wife’s Golf was so strong she swapped it for a Jazz.
Proper heating controls were an added bonus.
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We have the European Commission to thank for the mandatory fitment of Lane Keeping Assist, Emergency Collision Avoidance (braking) and the incoming Speed Limit Control features on new European cars these days.
All car makers have to fit these features on cars for sale in the EU. The UK’s DfT follows the EU, so they are mandatory in the UK too.
Some makers calibrate these “aids” better than others. The one in our Skoda was invasive and objectionable, so I always turned it off. The system in the Tesla is mildly irritating, so I merely curse it occasionally. The systems in the GR Yaris are always turned off on start up, as it would be just rude to use them on a car like that.
As a former BMW (F31) 3 series estate owner, I am mystified by the current house styling but the safety aids are not entirely of their choosing.
Best regards, BF
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We do a lot of high speed freeway driving and I’m not overly worried buy the safety aids. Our lane keeping system is non invasive and can be disabled. On the plus if wasn’t for those nasty men and women in the EU we probably wouldn’t have anti skid brakes or stability systems.
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We can’t do (legally) high speed driving in the UK. The limit it 70mph.
Willy.
Lane change & brake assist are annoying as hell, i disable every time on the BMW, not so easy on the last generation BMW F60and Mini F66,having all touch controls, the Mini one Is hidden in sub menus, absolutely deal breaker for me
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For me most of these ‘aids’ are mildly irritating, rather than deal breakers.
The BMW lane departure system only operates at speeds above 40 mph, so I would expect any issues with horses or cyclists to be few and far between.
Hhhmmm, except that it was those lovely people at Daimler, WABCO (now part of ZF) and Bosch that developed these systems. I personally think that they are excellent 99% of the time, snow probably being the only condition when they hinder more than they help.
On the other hand, a “safety aid” that actively argues with the driver when driving down country lanes is a dangerous, awful thing in our experience. Another is Active Cruise Control that slams on the emergency brakes every time that the motorway that we regularly use passes under a bridge with a 30mph speed limit on it. The active cruise control picks the wrong speed limit at that point. We were almost rear-ended twice before we learned to switch off the system on that road.
YMMV.
Best regards, BF
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Except when the electronic safety aids make the errors that I have described above.
Otherwise, I agree.
Best regards, BF
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It seems different manufacturers have different parameters I know there’s a few complaints here that the driver adds are over sensitive in Chinese cars here, but that really shouldn’t surprise you.
I’m ok with them as long as you can disable them or at least mute.
Speaking of aids my Alfa saved me (every other Alfa I’ve owned has at times had tried to kill me). We had a car go through a stop sign at T intersection one night coming home, the auto braking system stopped us quicker than I had time to. It pulled up dead straight as well. Mrs Pete was on my left and would have suffered the impact.
Since then I’ve been a little more open to safety systems in cars. It’s true they’re come at the cost, modern cars are becoming less involving to drive. That was probably going to happen when the ICE is history anyway. But most people I know just consider a car a form of transport they’re happy to let the car take some responsibility.
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Perhaps instead of disabling the lane aids , try indicating that you intend to change lanes
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I’ve experienced that in a Mercedes we owned a few years ago it used to do it where school zones were in adjacent surface roads. It also used to slam the brakes on every now and then on a slight curve on the freeway, scary.
The system in the VW is much better. The only thing it’s done is at one place. To it it looks like I’m turning in to an oncoming traffic but it’s drive way into a local hardware, it’s on a slight curve (again). You can’t creep up to take advantage of a gap without it think you’re going to have a head on. One system that I think is a great idea is the reverse auto braking, again it isn’t perfect but on more than one occasion it’s alerted us to something we hadn’t seen.
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Agreed on something like a dual carriageway. However, the system gets its knickers in a twist on most narrow country lanes. What do you propose then? 
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