That's also part of the reason I would never even consider the Tesla insurance, where the cost is based on driving events like that I think? There is a RV that is parked on the street near a curve near my house, and every single time I drive by I get a warning about smashing into it.
Are these types of settings (like seat position, etc.) per-driver in Teslas ?
Oh so that’s what that is! That’s why Teslas are so annoying on the road.
It’s super dangerous when I’m motorcycling in rush hour traffic and cars in front of me unpredictably slam their brakes with plenty of room to go.
Another frustrating part is when you’re following 2 cars driving side-by-side on a curve and one of them keeps tapping their brakes because it thinks the car in the other lane is an obstacle. The lights come on and you’re never quite sure if it’s going to slam the brakes or just lightly tap them.
Usually this is a frustration because I’m trying to lane-split between the cars so I’m following at a relatively short distance and slowly getting closer.
Every time I've been in a car with someone who routinely complains about their AEB its no wonder why the system is constantly "falsely triggering". I try to not ride with those people again.
I've had it beep at me while I was stopping behind vehicles before a handful of times, but it doesn't try to override me if I'm intentionally braking. There wasn't any actual threat of accident there anyway.
But for the blinking BRAKE thing, I've almost completely gotten rid of that by just not following so closely. Now I can also regen brake more and I get better mileage.
I understand the sentiment. However consider that cars kill around 2 million people, and maim another 2, every single year. For scale, its equivalent to a fully loaded passenger jet falling out of the sky every few hours.
Anything you can do to reduce this insanity is welcome.
The average person is a poor driver, so we increase overall safety by mandating automated systems that perform below the level of a skilled driver. Of course even skilled drivers make mistakes, and even if I could outperform the automated system 99 times out of 100, I wouldn't bet that I wouldn't get the book thrown at me if I were in an accident with the safety system disabled. Grin and bear it I suppose.
The entire point of these tests by AAA was to measure the effectiveness of these systems, as compared to older cars/systems.
If you're saying "Well my AEB sucks" you might want to look at the tests, and consider that your system might be old, or just an individually sucky implementation.*
https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/documents/core_p...
(Similar disatance: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vehicle_Stopping_Dis...)
So, yes, if you want to avoid a crash you have an under half a second (40 feet margin at 90 feet/second) to start braking before a collision is guaranteed. That’s legitimately an emergency situation because you really shouldn’t be driving that fast if you can’t see more than 200’ ahead, and if you’re incapacitated or unwise enough to be in that situation hard braking is much better than what would otherwise happen. Calling it sucky is like saying fire sprinklers are sucky because your wet carpet needed cleaning.
In any other situation, it’s not panic braking. Nobody is going to ship something which go straight to 100% braking in normal circumstances where you have a better balance of visibility and speed.
(I traded in my 2017 Tesla Model S to get the Outback and I've never regretted it.)
My mom was telling me how this car doesn't let her hit anything. She was saying this as she was parking her car in front of mine, and let it bump into my car. Pretty annoying that people get used to these systems and think that they are foolproof.
Regarding AEB specifically, I've probably only ever had it engage 2-3 times on the road, ever.
Maybe something is out of whack with your cameras?
Is all the added expense and impact on the environment worth it? Is the cost ever a concern in these mandates?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_...
Basically, law enforcement switched from enforcing traffic laws to automated detriments like traffic cameras that don't have the same prevention effects
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reported_Road_Casualties_Great...
Data sources/classifications for injuries are more open to question because, for example, it might be possible for a minor injury to not be included in a police report at the scene while presenting later at a hospital. However, using a consistent basis for the period, Seriously injured are down 10% and Slightly injured down 32%, without adjusting for the increase in miles.
As with any stats, though, you have to understand the detail to draw any conclusions.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casua...
I think it's kept in some kind of standby mode at low speeds then kicks in automatically when over a certain speed, when IT chooses to kick in and can take the driver by surprise, the car tries to move to the centre of the lane (or what it thinks is the lane).
you are what?
This is some literal Looney Tunes stuff... But it's the future we live in.
LKA is practically never strong enough itself to overpower an actual driver and force the car to swerve especially if the driver had even a reasonable grip on the wheel.
If the nudge of LKA was enough to startle the driver and have them swerve then just normal road feedback into the wheel would also cause them to startle and swerve.
Multiple times they attempted to steer me back into the oncoming vehicle because it thought I was too close to the edge. You can disable it but only for the current trip; so every time we got back in we had to go through a 2-3 minute checklist of disabling the murder settings.
Why is owning a modern car such a nightmare...? I suspect there's also a weird overlaid anxiety when one feels like they are "co-piloting with an unpredictable partner" rather than just driving.
I've experienced it slamming on at slow speeds and it's pretty aggressive.
IMO, all the vehicle's other convenience electronics are no-gos too. The lane keeping sensors trigger randomly and uselessly. Clearly the camera is unable to find the lane markers reliably. I turned off the service after less than a week of ownership.
The auto-high-beams work poorly, often leaving the highs lit even though headlights are clearly approaching. So I have to remain constantly vigilant that I don't annoy others, AND that it hasn't turned itself back on automatically.
Even the turn signals can't be stopped easily. Neither pulling on the stalk nor cross-signalling will stop the blinking once it starts. Cancellation seems to require about 8 additional blinks before it finally does stop, leaving me wondering which of my actions actually worked. After 5 years of ownership, I still don't know what the right magic incantation is for something that should be dead simple.
What's the point of e-conveniences that are inconvenient?
Try not tailgating. Try not switching lanes when it's close. Your car will stop beeping at you, and you'll also save yourself a lot of money in the long run.
I also got a dashcam, but all things being equal my preference would be to not hit anything in the first place.
That should always be the case, even without AEB.
The conclusion: The systems are getting better.
There is no claim that they are creating safer roads, or are a net benefit.
Consider the fact that you essentially have a webcam both forward and cabin facing with advanced sensors scanning your face from the dash, eye position, monitoring your location at all times, recording audio (https://www.mobileye.com/privacy-roadclips/), capturing images of everyone around you all the time, taking and uploading a constant stream of data via an onboard SIM card.
Don't forget this device is even on when your car is off as it is wired directly into the car powered by the battery.
I ripped mine out of my Honda and now there isn't a third party literally trying to control my steering wheel. The car drives noticeably better.
I don't think most people are aware this much data is being collected.
Look at Mobileye's new "SuperVision" platform that has literally ELEVEN Cameras... https://www.mobileye.com/solutions/super-vision/
https://ggim.un.org/unwgic/presentations/SS1_19Nov_Mobileye....
here's an interesting analysis for a lot more detail: https://lindseyresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/NHTSA...
They may have some promising data, but from what I've seen driving 2019 and 2021 model vehicles from Ford and Mazda, they are not even close to ready for prime-time.
I find both vehicles consistently falsely trigger the red-flashing-and-loud-beeping "COLLISION ALERT!!" dashboard warning to both small pavement cracks/potholes, and also to vehicles parked on the outside of a curve. This has happened at least a dozen times in the past ~30,000 miles driven. If those were instead automatic braking events, they would have caused an unnecessary rear-end accident least three times, as if I'd surprise "brake-checked" the driver behind me.
Yet, in an ACTUAL near-collision situation a few weeks ago, driving at night ~50mph on a rural road, a car ran a red light right in front of me, and I had to full-on threshold brake, years of road-race training reflexes kicking in before I was even aware of it. I barely avoided a collision, stopping with smoking brakes and a passenger with a pulled back muscle from having been not quite square with the seatbelt, my front bumper about a meter from their driver's door.
The car never made a peep — it completely missed the incident.
Of course, a working automatic braking system might have helped anyone in that situation, including me if I'd been a bit more sleepy or distracted. BUT IT DID NOT EVEN DETECT IT. The track record for the past 30,000+ miles is:
— 100% false positives — 100% false negatives
These 'collision detection systems' are 2-5 years newer than the systems AAA tested, yet the track record is awful. IDK what they are smoking but I do not want any.
I doubt the automakers are somehow holding back some magic solution, and would give them a LOT more time to get it right.
Just because a technology is promising does not mean it is ready to provide a benefit released in the wild on fast-moving multi-ton vehicles.
With a well maintained car (i.e. brakes that don't end up smoking when doing just a single emergency stop, even from 60-80mph...) you are less likely to avoid accidents by just a meter...
Thanks for your concern, but no, the car's braking capability was fully up to snuff and not compromised, stuck, worn-out, or boiling; it hauled the car down to zero in a handful of car-lengths, and mildly injured the passenger — crappy brakes can't do that.
And yes, perfectly good brakes, even race brakes, can be made to smoke in a single stop. It's done every time you take them out to bed them after install (many high-performance brake pads are 'transfer pads' that work best when some of their material is transferred at temperature to the rotor). Also, it is very common to see high-performance situations where the rotors are glowing-hot in a corner [0].
The reason it is so rare in ordinary street cars is most people not knowing how to use even 30% of the real braking capability. People either don't press hard enough, or just press mash the pedal and skid. Once the tire is skidding, the brakes aren't turning, so they aren't heating. Even ABS just splits the braking between the pads and the intermittently skidding tire.
Threshold braking is a skill that both takes time to learn and practice to maintain. It is basically getting a feel for the exact maximum braking grip the tire has at that moment, and braking just below that threshold. It extracts maximum performance from the car (sliding friction is always less than gripping friction) and also puts maximum heat into the pads.
And yes, threshold braking can really heat up the pads in one stop, and (depending on the car, track, and driver) completely burn down a set of pads in a single outing. OTOH, I had a set of pads last an entire race season on one car, or have to replace them every several sessions with other cars. Properly used, brake pads are just a wear item, but this is unfamiliar with street use, because you should typically almost never be threshold braking, so they'll last tens of thousands of miles.
But the main point here is that the ONE situation I've had in the last 30k miles with "collision alarms", the car completely missed it.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBoMTYZAyJc
edit delete stray chars
>As a result, it should do more good; according to the NHTSA, if manufacturers deploy auto-braking systems that work at higher speeds, it would save at least 360 lives each year and prevent 24,000 injuries
>The government estimated that installing more advanced AEB systems on its cars would cost an additional $350 per vehicle. The auto lobbying group estimates prices could range up to $4,200 per car instead, and it has filed a petition to request changes to the final federal rules.
Over 13 million light duty vehicles were sold in the US in 2022, so +$4,550,000,000 in added costs per year.
https://www.economist.com/united-states/2024/01/18/why-car-i...
I suspect the industry figures aren’t exaggerated that highly exaggerated both because of the political angle and because it’s an unsourced claim with a big range ($200 to >$4,200) with some of the concerns stemming from the need to have faster processors and better sensors which they’d almost certainly be doing anyway since everyone wants to sell driver assistance features.
They have been recent cars though, so I'm inclined to agree with the comment theorizing that maybe those cars just aren't as new
I really do think that many people tailgate, approach slower cars too fast, and otherwise drive pretty unsafely and assuming they're driving just fine.
I would think the insurance companies could come up with a better braking test, like 60 to 40 with a swerve, where the suspension response factors in as well as both tire lateral and longitudinal grip.
You've got to add safety factors from there. Reaction time, road conditions, vehicle condition, steering inputs, etc.
But also, a brake test with a swerve is going to be a lot less repeatable, because the driver input is more complex.
Of course, I have most of the driving assistance features, like LKAS, disabled. They work alright, but when I got my windshield replaced, I couldn't easily get the part that had the all-important "H" logo on it, so they will refuse to re-calibrate the sensors. I think it's pretty funny that potentially life-saving driving assistance features could become useless because the glass on your car doesn't have the right logo on it. Maybe if there was something wrong with the glass, sure, but I mean, it is literally identical to the OEM glass as far as I understand it (same manufacturer, Pilkington...) and there's nothing preventing me from engaging the features now, they just are a bit misaligned. Given the direction that EVs are going, I'm guessing the enshittification of cars is just getting started, and safety will be a key scapegoat just like security often is for other electronics.
Having this shit at 62 mph? Excuse my french but fuck no
They do just the right amount of "help" without really getting in your way.
Perhaps I am in weird kind of commuter bubble by living down in the Houston area. None of this shit makes sense to me. If I were to take my car out onto I-45 right now (not even rush hour) and slam on my brakes in the main lanes, I can 100% guarantee there would be a serious multiple vehicle accident. It's actually against the law (white sign, black letters) to come to a complete stop in the main lanes on many freeways and tollways around here.
So when there's a big accident and traffic comes to a stop you're just supposed to plough 60+mph into the crowd? Or are you supposed to come to a stop and not collide with the other cars?
For someone who thinks that you need to slam on the brakes to stop, ABS are probably fine (but you will lose a lot of stopping power). For someone who understands that you need to gently ease onto the brakes to stop, ABS are detrimental and can put you in dangerous situations because, once they engage, they can be hard to disengage fast enough to recover.
This is why a lot of cars these days have added a button to disable ABS/traction control.
> (but you will lose a lot of stopping power)
Source?
Look up demos on ABS anywhere on the web. You'd be hard pressed to find a professional driver defeating the stopping distance of ABS against threshold braking. Including F1 drivers.
These demos are often done in controlled conditions on a track, with a highly experienced driver. The demos are plentiful.
The one scenario I can see a driver outperforming ABS is in the snow/ice, as you mentioned. But even that comes with caveats.. such as -> Are really prepared to preform optimally in an emergency situation? Is loss of control acceptable such as to prevent an accident VS keeping control in order to change directions in order to avoid an obstacle? The ideal balance between these are handled well with ABS in most situations, including snow. The MORE ideal situation is to drive in such a way that you do not out-pace your braking capabilities on your following distance.
Related to a real-world in a split second decision scenario, there's no contest between a pro and ABS. Not to mention your average driver vs ABS.
>This is why a lot of cars these days have added a button to disable ABS/traction control.
Source on that?
I personally believe there are OFF switches on some cars (not all) due to personal owner preference. Personally, Ive used this switch to reduce launch control issues when I'm planning on a hard acceleration. NEVER to attempt to defeat the computer in deceleration.
My favorite video explainer on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-GEUkiMuLk
