[Misc] Lane keep assist on cars

[hans kraay fan club]

I managed to crash my car when we had snow a few weeks back and I've been given a Toyota Aygo as a courtesy car. It's so bad, I'm a relatively new driver and have only driven a few cars but I don't know why anyone would make a car this bad.
It has lane centering assist and in my opinion it's a crash waiting to happen on winding roads or anywhere you have to overtake parked cars. If you have to go around a parked car it pulls you back into it's path. I try to remember to turn it off each trip but it's caught me out a couple of times.
Not noticeable on dual carriageways or motorways as indicating disables it I believe, but I hate it.

I'd suggest that on the car you are driving, it is defective! I've driven a good dozen cars with lane assist, and I have never, ever experienced anything like that.

 

[Flounce]

So, if a driver stays in lane 100% of the time, they won't even notice it exists. Is this right?

Certainly seems like a safety feature to over come poor drivers and/or inevitable human error.

Nope, because if you pull out to overtake a parked car and go over the line or are on narrow country lane and cross the line it will try and pull you back or alert you if you have just set warning rather than taking over control. You have to indicate to nullify it.

Anyway it seems some think it’s a good thing so we are all different

 

[Baldseagull]

Use it all the time on my Kia Ceed in association with its auto lane control feature. Excellent on long trips on motorways, even if there are bends in the road you don't need to move the steering wheel at any point. Keep the steering wheel pointing straight and the car automatically steers all the bends for you.

That would be really useful when I am trying to roll a fag.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

Use it all the time on my Kia Ceed in association with its auto lane control feature. Excellent on long trips on motorways, even if there are bends in the road you don't need to move the steering wheel at any point. Keep the steering wheel pointing straight and the car automatically steers all the bends for you.

The current VW version is absolutely NOT like this. It will not allow you to do this without sounding the alarm, and flashing up the 'Please take control of the steering' message.

It is there to correct the steering if you drift, and shouldn't really be used for anything else, IMO.

 

[Greg Bobkin]

I rented a Peugeot 308 in France last year and did over 1,000 km in it. By a distance the worst thing about that car, which otherwise I enjoyed driving, was its lane assist feature that I had to turn off every time I got into the car, the default setting (which I guess could have been changed somewhere) was to have it turned on. It felt like someone else was driving instead of me, like one of those dreams you get that has a hidden meaning to it!

No, you can't normally.

I can only assume you haven't experienced the system that alerts you when the speed limit changes.

Every. Single. Time.

Again, it's not on all cars, but the Koreans are all over it...

I'll add 'intelligent' cruise control to the list too (now THAT'S something I'll very rarely use). Twice driving up the A23 in different Mercedes-Benz models, the car picked up the 40mph speed limit of the slip road, and slowed from 70mph accordingly. Another time – in another car – it thought that the speed limit going through the M25 roadworks was 10mph (again, on the slip road).

Shambles. Cars and technology trying to be too clever for its own good.

 

[Sorrel]

Why would you not indicate when you change lanes after overtaking on a motorway? Any lane change should be signalled.

In the UK I’ve tended to signal moving out to overtake, but not always when moving back into the previous lane, especially if no one else except the overtaken vehicle was nearby.

It was doing that in Spain that made me aware this was a feature in modern cars.

 

[Flounce]

I think there is some truth to this, but the steering correction is really not intrusive (on my VW Tiguain, or previous VW Passat, at least) and if you ARE alert and driving more or less in the centre of your lane, then you wouldn't even know the feature was there.

If however you did lose concentration, or heaven forbid doze of for a second, it will drag you back to the centre of the lane and sound a warning. If you are actually meaning to drift across a lane, but didn't bother indicating, it would catch you out, but that's hardly the car's fault! You can over-ride it (without indicating) by making a deliberate adjustment with the wheel.

The car will also sound an alarm, and in an emergency auto-brake if you're at risk of piling into the back of someone, will turn the lights on itself if its getting dark and I haven't, turn the wipers on if it starts raining, and will light up a warning light built into the wing mirror, if something is in the adjacent lane in the blind spot.

Now I hope I'm an alert enough driver to cope just fine without any of those features, but I see no reason to switch any of them off. One day I (any of you) might just be grateful for them.

Lane keep assist apart, all the other features you mention are good, especially the blind spot monitor and emergency braking.

 

[Gabbafella]

I'd suggest that on the car you are driving, it is defective! I've driven a good dozen cars with lane assist, and I have never, ever experienced anything like that.

Scared the shit out of me the first time it happened, I had to look through all the settings and figured out what it was. It pulls way harder than I'd expect it to, just doesn't seem like a very safe safety feature to me, but as I said I'm pretty inexperienced when it comes to driving so maybe it's just that I'm not used to it as my car doesn't have it.

 

[BevBHA]

In the UK I’ve tended to signal moving out to overtake, but not always when moving back into the previous lane, especially if no one else except the overtaken vehicle was nearby.

It was doing that in Spain that made me aware this was a feature in modern cars.

Yes agreed, or when driving and there’s no one else in the immediate vicinity other than the car you’re overtaking. Whenever I’ve accidentally left lane assist on, it’s been quite counter productive in this scenario and made me feel out of control, I hate it!

 

[MJsGhost]

It seems very sensitive on my car and picks up lines (e.g. tarmac joins) that aren't lane markers, so can start dragging the car and telling me to concentrate when it shouldn't.

I think it's the injustice of being told off when I have done nothing wrong that annoys me the most (and I get enough of that at home)

 

[hans kraay fan club]

It seems very sensitive on my car and picks up lines (e.g. tarmac joins) that aren't lane markers, so can start dragging the car and telling me to concentrate when it shouldn't.

I think it's the injustice of being told off when I have done nothing wrong that annoys me the most.

This can definitely be an issue in road works!

 

[Hove Seagull]

I think it's the injustice of being told off when I have done nothing wrong that annoys me the most.

I assume you're not married then

 

[cheshunt seagull]

The current VW version is absolutely NOT like this. It will not allow you to do this without sounding the alarm, and flashing up the 'Please take control of the steering' message.

It is there to correct the steering if you drift, and shouldn't really be used for anything else, IMO.

It's the same with my Seat Leon.

 

[MJsGhost]

I assume you're not married then

Ha ha, I have edited my post appropriately

 

[Questions]

I think there is some truth to this, but the steering correction is really not intrusive (on my VW Tiguain, or previous VW Passat, at least) and if you ARE alert and driving more or less in the centre of your lane, then you wouldn't even know the feature was there.

If however you did lose concentration, or heaven forbid doze of for a second, it will drag you back to the centre of the lane and sound a warning. If you are actually meaning to drift across a lane, but didn't bother indicating, it would catch you out, but that's hardly the car's fault! You can over-ride it (without indicating) by making a deliberate adjustment with the wheel.

The car will also sound an alarm, and in an emergency auto-brake if you're at risk of piling into the back of someone, will turn the lights on itself if its getting dark and I haven't, turn the wipers on if it starts raining, and will light up a warning light built into the wing mirror, if something is in the adjacent lane in the blind spot.

Now I hope I'm an alert enough driver to cope just fine without any of those features, but I see no reason to switch any of them off. One day I (any of you) might just be grateful for them.

I’ve got a Tiguan as well and I adhere to all of this …..

 

[Cheshire Cat]

As a BMW driver I’d say that’s only partly true. Mine also has an automatic feature that flashes the headlights at anyone in front of me who isn’t going as fast as I would like. I haven’t found a way to disable that.

The optional-extra indicators on BMWs must be phenomenonally expensive, as nobody seems to have bought them.

 

[brighton_dave]

Having to indicate when changing lanes is a good feature for sure.
The only annoyance at the minute is last minute pot hole avoid, where it tries to pull you back into them.
Heaven forbid trying to avoid a little old lady stepping in front of you, only to find lane assist decides it's safer to wipe her out.

 

[pb21]

Tremendous. Great advert for this feature.

I was joking!

 

[PeterT]

The optional-extra indicators on BMWs must be phenomenonally expensive, as nobody seems to have bought them.

Don’t think mine has them. It has those orange light things which flash together when you want to park outside a school or a post office, is that what you mean?

 

[hans kraay fan club]

Having to indicate when changing lanes is a good feature for sure.
The only annoyance at the minute is last minute pot hole avoid, where it tries to pull you back into them.
Heaven forbid trying to avoid a little old lady stepping in front of you, only to find lane assist decides it's safer to wipe her out.

Again - it seems that not all of these systems are the same. In my experience, in multiple VWs the lane assist does NOT pull you back when you make a deliberate action to turn the wheel left / right (for example to miss a little old lady) - only when you drift towards the lane markers