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Studies find automatic braking can cut crashes over 40%

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171–177 of 177 posts

Re: Studies find automatic braking can cut crashes over 40%

#171
post #10

Oof, my experience with with auto-brake in a 2021 Subaru Crosstrek (anecdotal, sample size of one, all that good stuff) is much the opposite. It's too sensitive and tends to brake shockingly hard during fairly mundane maneuvers. When backing up near a wall/obstacle, the auto-brake seems to kick in when anything is closer than three or four feet away from the bumper. I use my mirrors and have an accurate impression of…

Honestly, I feel like a lot of the people complaining about this feature are just bad drivers who regularly drive unsafely and are now getting called out on it. This in particular: > Sometimes, though, I will allow the distance between myself and the next car to close, for example, if they're turning and will be gone in a second anyway. The Subaru then ruins my well-calculated slowdown maneuver by slamming on the bra…

Maybe? Few would openly admit to be a bad driver to begin with so it is hard to even get anecdata on the subject. In other words, I am not sure you can determine an answer either.

What I can say is what bothers me about it. Can I turn it off? Can toggle on/off switch be disabled by an update? Can I trust that it the off button will do what it is supposed to do? If I can do those things, can I trust this feature to work as advertised? I used to not ask questions like that with cars as there was certain level of.. expectation that this machine has to work in sometimes drastically radical conditions ( especially in some parts of US ).

Cars are software now. But that is not my main beef with it. My beef is that it is built to the detriment of the end user and to strip the user of all control.

Re: Studies find automatic braking can cut crashes over 40%

#172
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not comfortable at all claiming that you’re a bad driver in general, like the GP proposes, and maybe I’m taking your unit of measurement too literally, but I don’t think 1-2 car lengths is a reasonable follow distance in almost any circumstances above 45mph, two lengths is kinda the minimum to not bother the person in front of you. Again, I’m making a very general statement, that might not apply to the situations…

This is an interesting point. The Subaru's adaptive cruise control system treats a "car length" as a fairly large unit of measurement. One car length seems to be the literal length of the vehicle, plus some reasonable amount of buffer on both ends. Probably twice as large as the vehicle itself. And the faster you're going, the larger a single car length becomes. Infinite nuance :P But in general, very good commentary…

Fwiw, it’s interesting to me that the unit of a “car length” would not refer to a literal car length (14-17 ft or so).

Re: Studies find automatic braking can cut crashes over 40%

#173
post #10

Oof, my experience with with auto-brake in a 2021 Subaru Crosstrek (anecdotal, sample size of one, all that good stuff) is much the opposite. It's too sensitive and tends to brake shockingly hard during fairly mundane maneuvers. When backing up near a wall/obstacle, the auto-brake seems to kick in when anything is closer than three or four feet away from the bumper. I use my mirrors and have an accurate impression of…

Honestly, I feel like a lot of the people complaining about this feature are just bad drivers who regularly drive unsafely and are now getting called out on it. This in particular: > Sometimes, though, I will allow the distance between myself and the next car to close, for example, if they're turning and will be gone in a second anyway. The Subaru then ruins my well-calculated slowdown maneuver by slamming on the bra…

> You really shouldn't be driving like that. You don't know if the car in front of you making that turn is going to brake suddenly, like because, I dunno, they suddenly see a pedestrian crossing on the side street.

I think that's the problem with that attitude and why I don't like my car doing excessive braking. Unlike the distance lidar, I can actually see there's nothing obstructing the turning driver, and I can see their speed of leaving the lane is simply too high for them to stop before leaving the lane even if they slam the brakes. And even if they did somehow manage to break where they are already I'd only need a little swerve to the left to drive around with no traffic there etc

Re: Studies find automatic braking can cut crashes over 40%

#174
post #162
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Toyota has a good one: it gives me a beep and turns the screen red, but I have to start braking by myself, at which point it takes over and adjusts braking force so as to not hit whatever is in front of me. False positives usually happen when there are cars parked along a turn, but I ignore this completely. Over the course of the five years I had this car it prevented a collision twice this way.

Wow, I've had the same thing in two different cars (Ford & Mazda), and it is awful. Always false alarms, never in time that I could brake at a time that I wouldn't otherwise, and distracting enough to be a real worry. The only situation I can conceive of it being useful is if the driver is falling asleep on the highway. What were the situations where yours triggered and actually helped?

First was my first day with glasses - I didn't anticipate that my depth perception would be so different so the sensor beeped when traffic in front of me stopped due to a changing light.

Second was the car in front of me hitting the brakes when I was looking in the rearview mirror because both of us wanted to overtake the truck in front of us - that other person in the last moment decided not to do it.

Or perhaps they weren't planning on that and just didn't see the truck - I didn't see them indicate.

Re: Studies find automatic braking can cut crashes over 40%

#175
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Toyota has a good one: it gives me a beep and turns the screen red, but I have to start braking by myself, at which point it takes over and adjusts braking force so as to not hit whatever is in front of me. This way takes away the biggest advantage of this systems - that they can react before you do.

Thing is it does react before I do - in those two situations I would have probably continued on my path for too long and brake too late to avoid a collision.

It does not brake, just waits for your reaction.

Re: Studies find automatic braking can cut crashes over 40%

#176
post #174
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I've had the same thing in two different cars (Ford & Mazda), and it is awful. Always false alarms, never in time that I could brake at a time that I wouldn't otherwise, and distracting enough to be a real worry. The only situation I can conceive of it being useful is if the driver is falling asleep on the highway. What were the situations where yours triggered and actually helped?

First was my first day with glasses - I didn't anticipate that my depth perception would be so different so the sensor beeped when traffic in front of me stopped due to a changing light. Second was the car in front of me hitting the brakes when I was looking in the rearview mirror because both of us wanted to overtake the truck in front of us - that other person in the last moment decided not to do it. Or perhaps the…

Interesting thanks - could see how it could have helped in those situations. And in both, you managed to see/hear the warning and brake in time - impressive!

Re: Studies find automatic braking can cut crashes over 40%

#177
post #38

Got a new M340i a month ago, first day driving it I get cut off by some 90 year old in a buick who didn't want to miss his turn. Was really glad to have automatic braking, by the time my foot had lifted off the gas it was already braking.

Good to know. My 440i has warned a few times, but never triggered. Looks like BMW has calibrated it pretty well.

Yeah I think so, I've gotten the warning as well when someone cut in at a slower speed but this time it definitely felt like it saved the situation because it knew it needed to.
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