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I’ve never understood the point of cruise control. You still have to drive and pay attention might as well do everything yourself. Could someone share their ex

I’ve never understood the point of cruise control. You still have to drive and pay attention might as well do everything yourself. Could someone share their experience?

penjelly 5y ago
do you mean cruise control as in autopilot and lanekeeping? or traditional cruise control that just keeps the same speed? for the latter, long drives it helps relieve some tension in my legs to not have to be pressing the pedal to maintain speed. i cant speak for the former as i havent used them
illwrks 5y ago
Driving on motorway in low or medium levels of traffic. What traffic is there moves at a consistent pace and cruise control can give your foot a rest for a period of time.
BuildTheRobots 5y ago
I find cruise control (in a 20 year old vehicle) extremely handy. Means I'm maintaining a constant speed no matter the grade/slope of the road and on long journeys also means I don't get cramp in my right ankle. I tend to despise most modern driving aids, but cruise control (just the very basic "maintain speed") is extremely handy and makes driving a lot easier. Maintaining a constant speed (to within 1mph) by foot over a 2 hour drive is almost impossible. It also seems to help my fuel economy.
- slowmovintarget 5y ago
  That plus a push button "slow down a little, or speed up a little" make a big difference on long trips.
dragontamer 5y ago
Try driving for 4-hours or longer. Your foot gets physically tired pushing the accelerator for that long. Cruise control prevents that tiredness from occurring.
chris11 5y ago
I use OpenPilot, which is third party L2 driver assistance sw/hw. I started looking into it after getting into an accident on the freeway. It's amazing for highway driving. You do still have to pay attention, but long trips are much more relaxing. You don't have to do anything besides pay attention while you are staying in the same lane, and driving is much smoother with it.
eunoia 5y ago
The only use I’ve ever found for traditional cruise control is to reduce ankle strain on extremely long road trips. Not a big fan. Adaptive cruise control is about my favorite “driver assist” technology though. Makes the constant speed changes of rush hour driving much less stressful when you use a large enough safety window. Also on open highways it is just wonderful as you basically never touch it (unlike traditional which constantly has to be disengaged for even a single other car in your lane). Worth noting that my vehicle’s emergency braking system is distinct and active regardless of ACC status. Also I’m always ready to brake manually.
scrumper 5y ago
On a long highway run I find cruise control helps with economy more than anything else. This is because it stops you unconsciously accelerating when you don't need to. It also gives you the chance to wriggle your feet and legs a bit which can be nice. It's only really of use in light traffic as it'll quickly put you in conflict with other drivers who aren't using it. The other benefit is cognitive, but not in the way you might expect: it's not relaxing to turn it on, you still have to steer and very much drive the car; it's more that when you get bored, you can turn it off and "hand fly" the car again, and that change of modality is refreshing in itself. (This is purely an aside but I have a temporary soapbox so why not. I'm skeptical of more advanced forms of cruise control, even simple things like adaptive. Anything that reduces your need to concentrate tends to leave you open to daydreaming (never mind actual distractions like phones); an example of the "TSA agent problem" where staring at a screen of benign bags all day turns out to be a bad way to detect guns in hand luggage. Better I think to have nothing, absent sci-fi-years-in-the-future autonomous cars where you can sleep while they're underway. Humans are awful at passively waiting for something out of the ordinary to occur; computers are great at that. Computers suck at common sense and detecting intention; humans are amazing. The current state of self driving cars plays to both actors' worst weaknesses!)
emerged 5y ago
I use it constantly. It saves having to constantly adjust pressure on your gas pedal to maintain a speed. I also use the up/down buttons constantly to make small adjustments. It’s easier and more precise than the foot.
- endisneigh 5y ago
  It’s interesting that many people are saying this. I’ve driven from Palo Alto to NYC and back 5 times and never had any leg issues going 10 hours a day.
  - laserlight 5y ago
    I don’t understand it either. My gas pedal stays wherever I put it with almost no effort.
    - defen 5y ago
      Even when you're going uphill or downhill? Or when the driver ahead of you slows down without using his brakes?
      - laserlight 5y ago
        Yes, indeed. I'm not aware of any hardship when I go uphill full throttle. Going downhill is harder because I have to keep my foot in the air not to depress the gas pedal. In those cases though, I either rest my foot on the break pedal or put it down floor depending on the conditions. When the driver ahead slows down, I slow down using breaks. I've driven for hours with and without cruise control. I've never felt any discomfort in my lower leg muscles because of using pedals.
  - ordu 5y ago
    It is not about "leg issues", it is also about you mind needs to control your leg. And about your fuel costs: software can regulate power much more precise, speed becomes virtually constant, no acceleration means no changes in a kinetic energy, so less fuel is needed. Top bicycle athletes spend many hours learning how to pedal to minimize accelerations due to cyclic nature of pedaling. With a car it seems easier (all you need is to keep your foot steady, not to maintain constant torque while switching from one leg muscle to another) but I cannot do it. Cruise control beats me every time.
Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
During long distance highway driving, foot/ankle muscles get tired out and sore holding the gas pedal constantly. Also, some people are very bad at maintaining a constant speed, frequently accelerating and then releasing the pedal, so their speed looks like a sine wave, which absolutely destroys fuel economy. For those people, cruise control improves efficiency.
gvb 5y ago
Drivers who don't maintain a constant speed on the expressway are one of my pet peeves. Using cruise control is a simple fix to this. The worst drivers are "booger cars" - they maintain the same speed as you in the adjacent lane with their front bumper roughly adjacent to your rear bumper. I call them "booger cars" because, if you try to get them to stop sticking to you by speeding up or slowing down, they just match your speed. About the only way to get rid of them is to "rub them off" by passing a slower vehicle that is in their lane, breaking their fixation on your car.
- hermitdev 5y ago
  Your "booger cars" (I like that term) are very annoying. I refer to the "rub them off" as using the third car to "set a pick" a la basketball. The kind of driver that especially irritates me is the one that hangs out in the passing lane, driving slowly either at or under the limit, and then when you when you try and get around them, you can't without doing +20 over the limit.

I’ve never understood the point of cruise control. You still have to drive and pay attention might as well do everything yourself. Could someone share their experience?

penjelly 5y ago

do you mean cruise control as in autopilot and lanekeeping? or traditional cruise control that just keeps the same speed? for the latter, long drives it helps relieve some tension in my legs to not have to be pressing the pedal to maintain speed. i cant speak for the former as i havent used them

illwrks 5y ago

Driving on motorway in low or medium levels of traffic. What traffic is there moves at a consistent pace and cruise control can give your foot a rest for a period of time.

BuildTheRobots 5y ago

I find cruise control (in a 20 year old vehicle) extremely handy. Means I'm maintaining a constant speed no matter the grade/slope of the road and on long journeys also means I don't get cramp in my right ankle. I tend to despise most modern driving aids, but cruise control (just the very basic "maintain speed") is extremely handy and makes driving a lot easier. Maintaining a constant speed (to within 1mph) by foot over a 2 hour drive is almost impossible. It also seems to help my fuel economy.

slowmovintarget 5y ago
That plus a push button "slow down a little, or speed up a little" make a big difference on long trips.

dragontamer 5y ago

Try driving for 4-hours or longer. Your foot gets physically tired pushing the accelerator for that long. Cruise control prevents that tiredness from occurring.

chris11 5y ago

I use OpenPilot, which is third party L2 driver assistance sw/hw. I started looking into it after getting into an accident on the freeway. It's amazing for highway driving. You do still have to pay attention, but long trips are much more relaxing. You don't have to do anything besides pay attention while you are staying in the same lane, and driving is much smoother with it.

eunoia 5y ago

The only use I’ve ever found for traditional cruise control is to reduce ankle strain on extremely long road trips. Not a big fan. Adaptive cruise control is about my favorite “driver assist” technology though. Makes the constant speed changes of rush hour driving much less stressful when you use a large enough safety window. Also on open highways it is just wonderful as you basically never touch it (unlike traditional which constantly has to be disengaged for even a single other car in your lane). Worth noting that my vehicle’s emergency braking system is distinct and active regardless of ACC status. Also I’m always ready to brake manually.

scrumper 5y ago

On a long highway run I find cruise control helps with economy more than anything else. This is because it stops you unconsciously accelerating when you don't need to. It also gives you the chance to wriggle your feet and legs a bit which can be nice. It's only really of use in light traffic as it'll quickly put you in conflict with other drivers who aren't using it. The other benefit is cognitive, but not in the way you might expect: it's not relaxing to turn it on, you still have to steer and very much drive the car; it's more that when you get bored, you can turn it off and "hand fly" the car again, and that change of modality is refreshing in itself. (This is purely an aside but I have a temporary soapbox so why not. I'm skeptical of more advanced forms of cruise control, even simple things like adaptive. Anything that reduces your need to concentrate tends to leave you open to daydreaming (never mind actual distractions like phones); an example of the "TSA agent problem" where staring at a screen of benign bags all day turns out to be a bad way to detect guns in hand luggage. Better I think to have nothing, absent sci-fi-years-in-the-future autonomous cars where you can sleep while they're underway. Humans are awful at passively waiting for something out of the ordinary to occur; computers are great at that. Computers suck at common sense and detecting intention; humans are amazing. The current state of self driving cars plays to both actors' worst weaknesses!)

emerged 5y ago

I use it constantly. It saves having to constantly adjust pressure on your gas pedal to maintain a speed. I also use the up/down buttons constantly to make small adjustments. It’s easier and more precise than the foot.

endisneigh 5y ago
It’s interesting that many people are saying this. I’ve driven from Palo Alto to NYC and back 5 times and never had any leg issues going 10 hours a day.
- laserlight 5y ago
  I don’t understand it either. My gas pedal stays wherever I put it with almost no effort.
  - defen 5y ago
    Even when you're going uphill or downhill? Or when the driver ahead of you slows down without using his brakes?
    - laserlight 5y ago
      Yes, indeed. I'm not aware of any hardship when I go uphill full throttle. Going downhill is harder because I have to keep my foot in the air not to depress the gas pedal. In those cases though, I either rest my foot on the break pedal or put it down floor depending on the conditions. When the driver ahead slows down, I slow down using breaks. I've driven for hours with and without cruise control. I've never felt any discomfort in my lower leg muscles because of using pedals.
- ordu 5y ago
  It is not about "leg issues", it is also about you mind needs to control your leg. And about your fuel costs: software can regulate power much more precise, speed becomes virtually constant, no acceleration means no changes in a kinetic energy, so less fuel is needed. Top bicycle athletes spend many hours learning how to pedal to minimize accelerations due to cyclic nature of pedaling. With a car it seems easier (all you need is to keep your foot steady, not to maintain constant torque while switching from one leg muscle to another) but I cannot do it. Cruise control beats me every time.

Sohcahtoa82 5y ago

During long distance highway driving, foot/ankle muscles get tired out and sore holding the gas pedal constantly. Also, some people are very bad at maintaining a constant speed, frequently accelerating and then releasing the pedal, so their speed looks like a sine wave, which absolutely destroys fuel economy. For those people, cruise control improves efficiency.

gvb 5y ago

Drivers who don't maintain a constant speed on the expressway are one of my pet peeves. Using cruise control is a simple fix to this. The worst drivers are "booger cars" - they maintain the same speed as you in the adjacent lane with their front bumper roughly adjacent to your rear bumper. I call them "booger cars" because, if you try to get them to stop sticking to you by speeding up or slowing down, they just match your speed. About the only way to get rid of them is to "rub them off" by passing a slower vehicle that is in their lane, breaking their fixation on your car.

hermitdev 5y ago
Your "booger cars" (I like that term) are very annoying. I refer to the "rub them off" as using the third car to "set a pick" a la basketball. The kind of driver that especially irritates me is the one that hangs out in the passing lane, driving slowly either at or under the limit, and then when you when you try and get around them, you can't without doing +20 over the limit.