[Misc] Lane keep assist on cars

[Flounce]

I wholly disagree with this approach. As @gazingdown says, these tools are designed to assist, not replace, manual checking of blind spots.

You are probably right but I use my wing mirrors and rearview one all the time so am aware of what traffic is behind me if I am thinking of overtaking.

 

[spongy]

A month ago I bought myself a 2018 Octavia vRS. It has all these gimics. I love it. A bit disconcerting at first but it's not a bad thing at all.

The lane assist symbol is green when activated, and will keep the car drifting out of lane, and generally orange on my commute as it's narrow twisty a roads so doesn't really work.

It's been fun but also terrifying testing it out and trying to not steer myself and letting the car do it. My hands have never been more than a millisecond away from the wheel and if there's oncoming cars I darent let it do itself.

If you're a decent driver and have any decent level of competency then it won't affect you in the slightest.

Probably more for those idiots that refuse to stop using a phone whilst driving.

I don't see why modern cats can't be a form of Faraday cage were as soon as you get into the driver's seat your phone is useless.

Wouldn't help with transporting the kids on long journeys though!

 

[METALMICKY]

Country lanes in a Kia Sportage not recommended with this feature on!

 

[GT49er]

Never knew such things existed! Certainly haven't got one (as far as I know)!

 

[Randy McNob]

I use Autopilot in my Tesla on the motorway. It’s mostly great until a car or lorry starts to veer towards you on an inside lane and it brakes unexpectedly. Unfortunately Netflix only works when stationary though.

Yes, Teslas don't like big lorries around them. Mine needed repairs and they gave me a manual petrol replacement car. I had to re learn how to drive ! Did make me feel, however, pressing the clutch and changing gears is laborious and clunky - felt like hard work ! I also got out of the habit of looking to my side or behind since you can see everything around you on the screen plus blind spot and rear view cameras make it unnecessary

 

[HeaviestTed]

. 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.

oh you have the **** pack

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

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.

Hyundai Kona here with lane assist. If you’re overtaking on a motorway and then returning to the inside lane afterwards, the lane assist will try to hold you gently in the overtaking lane, but won’t insist! If you indicate, which you should do, it overrides it. I’m not complaining about it.

 

[trueblue]

Use it all the time on my VW along with the adaptive cruise control. I do a lot of late night motorway driving so they're great safety features, just in case. If you're really tired, will keep you in lane and reduce speed automatically if there's anything slow moving ahead. Always stop for a kip if I'm knackered and wouldn't trust it for more than a second or two, but it could be a lifesaver for sure.

As for complaints about it pulling you back into lane particularly on back roads, either the systems vary greatly or there are a lot of people here with very weak arms. On the VW, any deliberate movement of the steering wheel easily over-rides the lane assist, plus it only kicks in at 40mph anyway.

 

[Barham's tash]

Its a shit idea. If you can't do a basic thing like staying in lane without drifting all over he shop, then you should't be behind the wheel in the first place.
I say this as someone driving a 10 year old Honda though, so its not a choice I have to make.

It’s a weird one. On my Kia it doesn’t differentiate between doing 70 on a motorway v 25 on a country lane without a centre line where you might have to drive in the middle to be safe. That’s usually when I realise I haven’t turned it off and do so immediately.

Can’t be arsed to look into the technical aspect but presume it’s using a sensor and distance to the edge of the road/lane which is why it doesn’t get certain circumstances.

 

[trueblue]

Yes, Teslas don't like big lorries around them. Mine needed repairs and they gave me a manual petrol replacement car. I had to re learn how to drive ! Did make me feel, however, pressing the clutch and changing gears is laborious and clunky - felt like hard work ! I also got out of the habit of looking to my side or behind since you can see everything around you on the screen plus blind spot and rear view cameras make it unnecessary

Automatic braking can be a pain on the VW too. It does get spooked by big lorries. If the cruise control is on, always rest my foot on the accelerator when overtaking HGVs as that cancels it. There's enough of a warning bleep to prevent drastic deceleration but it's still a bit of a shock to the system. Weirdly, the worst issue I've encountered was doing about 10mph in a car park. Camera must have picked up something the system interpreted as a pedestrian stepping out (there was a motorbike parked by some zebra cross markings). Full on emergency stop for no reason, fortunately with nothing behind me. On the flip side, that's one event in 6 years and 150,000 miles - and it did stop me going into the back of someone at a roundabout once too, when they decided at the last second not to pull away, So me and the car are quits.

 

[mejonaNO12 aka riskit]

It's on my Sportage. I remember when Test driving it thinking "bit weird that, I imagine I'll just turn it off unless I'm doing a really long motorway drive"

Never remember to turn it off. Doesn't ever cause a problem.

I appreciate the answer to this is "you shouldn't drive if you are that tired" and I wholly agree, but I guess it's nice to know that if someone suddenly started drifting without realizing it (which I again acknowledge shouldn't happen), then the car will be bleeping away at them like mad and self correcting which you would hopefully would be the realization to the driver that they are too tired to be behind the wheel.

 

[DFL JCL]

It's good because it encourages people to indicate.