5 ms·

I do love the ACC on my car. One of the worst parts of road trips is following cars you don't want to or can't pass. The ACC totally solves it. I don't see ho

I do love the ACC on my car. One of the worst parts of road trips is following cars you don't want to or can't pass. The ACC totally solves it. I don't see how you were really able to use cruise to follow another car at all before? Even 1mph too slow is not great and if the car in front isn't using any cruise control at all it could be 5mph too slow and then 5mph too fast.

Johnny555 4y ago
In my car without ACC, I just hit the up/down buttons to adjust the speed for the car in front. Not a big deal when there's a small speed difference, but certainly not as convenient as ACC.
- mypalmike 4y ago
  Some percentage of people (probably well into double digits) don't know about the up and down speed adjustment buttons.
  - DangitBobby 4y ago
    I do. They aren't responsive enough and the people in front of me aren't maintaining a consistent speed, so I just switch back to the pedal unless I'm pretty much by myself. I rented a car with adaptive cruise control and really loved it.
    - Johnny555 4y ago
      In my case, the car without ACC is an RV and since driving it is like trying to push a small house through the air, it responds pretty quickly to speed reductions. Plus I tend to keep a pretty long distance from the car in front of me, so I have more time to respond. I like to pick a truck to pace behind since a lot of people don't want to get stuck behind a truck so they don't pass me then pull in behind the truck, even with 5 or 10 seconds of following distance. Another advantage of pacing a truck is that they usually keep a pretty steady speed unless they are going up a hill, but then on the hill I can usually find a truck that's light enough to keep a pretty steady speed uphill.
twelve40 4y ago
> One of the worst parts of road trips this, so much > how you were really able to use cruise to follow another car at all before? not op, but you probably just don't, you disengage, cuss out loud and follow them manually until they come to a decision to stop hogging the lane. PS that's also why I hate the newer-style blocked-off HOV lanes here in sfbay, which seem to be a total trap and a magnet for idiots who drive 30 miles below the speed limit.
- mandevil 4y ago
  There is a reason that blocked-off HOV lanes are used: research has shown that slugging[1] will form spontaneously- and achieve the goal of actually reducing total number of car trips- it seems to need a bunch of things[2], and one of them is the HOV lanes be blocked off rather than easily accessible. Barrier separation discourages cheating, which in turn rewards drivers who carry slugs rather than just cheat, and rewards slugs with faster, better commutes. But the general consensus of road designers is that you need barriers on your HOV lanes to get slugging, and that without those barriers you don't really see as much of a reduction in car-trips- you will see some increase in planned car-pooling, but the slugging is where much of the reduction comes from, because its so much more convenient for everyone to do it anonymously at your own pace rather than having to tether you schedule to 1-2 specific other people. (One of you has a doctor's appointment? One of you has a sick kid? One of you oversleeps by 15 minutes? Now you are all screwed, one way or another. One of you can't get to work, and the rest of you can't take the HOV lanes. Planned car-pooling just doesn't seem to work long-term.) Note that all of the research I'm aware of is US based, and I have no idea whether it generalizes to other cultures. 1: http://www.slug-lines.com/slugging/about_slugging.asp http://www.slug-lines.com/slugging/about_slugging.asp 2: Houston's Katy Freeway went from HOV-3 to HOT-2 (and from 1 lane to 2) and seems to have gutted its slugging culture. People weren't willing to get into a strangers car anonymously by themselves (or have a single stranger in their car), it looks like 3 people, all strangers, is culturally different from 2. Also, HOT lanes seem to weaken slugging, even in DC where it was most strongly entrenched, the switch to HOT lanes seems to have weakened the culture, because people say 'I'll just pay today' rather than pick someone up. So it can spontaneously form, and when it does can be quite powerful, but is very fragile.
sokoloff 4y ago
I just did a 1500+ mile road trip over the holidays. During the drive, I was trying to figure out why old-tech (2005) cruise control worked so well. Even a 1 mph differential in speed is a car length change in following distance every 10 seconds. A 1/2 mph difference is 3 car lengths of change every minute. That seems like enough that would be annoying, but it obviously wasn’t when two cars are following each other both on cruise control. I still don’t have a fully satisfactory explanation for something that I can easily observe (that it’s usually not annoying).
- saalweachter 4y ago
  A 1 MPH pass doesn't take that long in absolute terms, but 15 car lengths (to maintain 7 car lengths in between at 70 MPH) still takes a solid 2.5 minutes to complete, during which you are nominally blocking the passing lane. (I say nominally because once there is a 2 car length gap between you and the other car, other drivers will be passing you on the right.)
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    Agreed/sorry. I was trying to communicate about why it wasn’t annoying to be the following car for long distances on cruise at X mph (always in one lane), where the car in front is also at “close to X mph”, and where my cruise control has 1 mph increments via button pushes. Even being 1/2mph off seems like it would be annoying, but it didn’t seem to be.
- progman32 4y ago
  I've puzzled over this as well. Surely, the other car's cruise control isn't calibrated to the same 1mph increments as mine, yet it somehow works out. I wonder if it's an interaction with the leading driver. Perhaps they consciously or subconsciously keep distance from the car behind?
scotty79 4y ago
If you don't want to pass a car you just drop down the speed on cruise control and widen the gap between the car you don't want to pass and you. It really doesn't matter if you are 10m or 100m behind him if you are not going to pass it. And if you get too far behind him you might bump up the speed a notch. And if somebody gets in the gap it's even better because they are going to eventually overtake him just like they overtook you and overtaking one car at a time might be safer than two cars at once.
- Gordonjcp 4y ago
  I can't say I've ever seen a disadvantage in leaving "too big" a gap between me and the car in front. If someone wants to pass me and then sit up the other guy's arse, fine. I guarantee I'll be ten seconds behind them at the next road junction, or not much more. I don't think people realise that the relationship between road speed and journey time isn't linear - doing 90mph won't get you there appreciably faster than doing 60mph unless you're on a very long perfectly straight road with no junctions to turn off at.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- darkwater 4y ago
  So basically doing manually what ACC does automatically for you
  - progman32 4y ago
    The problem comes from having to mentally monitor an additional complex system (the ACC) in exchange for the meager attention savings gleaned from not having to closely adjust distance to the next car. That's "adjust", not "monitor". You'll still need to monitor distance to the next car either way, ACC is no excuse to drift off. For example, my non-Tesla ACC will randomly brake hard with no car ahead. I personally use my ACC as an extra set of eyes. I set it and still manually adjust my speed using the +spd and -spd buttons on my steering wheel. If the car ahead changes speed and I somehow fail to notice it, my car will give me one more chance by automatically slowing down a bit. But every time that happens I treat it as an "oops" like airplane pilots do when GPWS (ground proximity warning system) alerts fire. It's great that automation averted the problem, but it became a problem due to the pilot's error.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

Johnny555 4y ago

In my car without ACC, I just hit the up/down buttons to adjust the speed for the car in front. Not a big deal when there's a small speed difference, but certainly not as convenient as ACC.

mypalmike 4y ago
Some percentage of people (probably well into double digits) don't know about the up and down speed adjustment buttons.
- DangitBobby 4y ago
  I do. They aren't responsive enough and the people in front of me aren't maintaining a consistent speed, so I just switch back to the pedal unless I'm pretty much by myself. I rented a car with adaptive cruise control and really loved it.
  - Johnny555 4y ago
    In my case, the car without ACC is an RV and since driving it is like trying to push a small house through the air, it responds pretty quickly to speed reductions. Plus I tend to keep a pretty long distance from the car in front of me, so I have more time to respond. I like to pick a truck to pace behind since a lot of people don't want to get stuck behind a truck so they don't pass me then pull in behind the truck, even with 5 or 10 seconds of following distance. Another advantage of pacing a truck is that they usually keep a pretty steady speed unless they are going up a hill, but then on the hill I can usually find a truck that's light enough to keep a pretty steady speed uphill.

twelve40 4y ago

> One of the worst parts of road trips this, so much > how you were really able to use cruise to follow another car at all before? not op, but you probably just don't, you disengage, cuss out loud and follow them manually until they come to a decision to stop hogging the lane. PS that's also why I hate the newer-style blocked-off HOV lanes here in sfbay, which seem to be a total trap and a magnet for idiots who drive 30 miles below the speed limit.

mandevil 4y ago
There is a reason that blocked-off HOV lanes are used: research has shown that slugging[1] will form spontaneously- and achieve the goal of actually reducing total number of car trips- it seems to need a bunch of things[2], and one of them is the HOV lanes be blocked off rather than easily accessible. Barrier separation discourages cheating, which in turn rewards drivers who carry slugs rather than just cheat, and rewards slugs with faster, better commutes. But the general consensus of road designers is that you need barriers on your HOV lanes to get slugging, and that without those barriers you don't really see as much of a reduction in car-trips- you will see some increase in planned car-pooling, but the slugging is where much of the reduction comes from, because its so much more convenient for everyone to do it anonymously at your own pace rather than having to tether you schedule to 1-2 specific other people. (One of you has a doctor's appointment? One of you has a sick kid? One of you oversleeps by 15 minutes? Now you are all screwed, one way or another. One of you can't get to work, and the rest of you can't take the HOV lanes. Planned car-pooling just doesn't seem to work long-term.) Note that all of the research I'm aware of is US based, and I have no idea whether it generalizes to other cultures. 1: http://www.slug-lines.com/slugging/about_slugging.asp http://www.slug-lines.com/slugging/about_slugging.asp 2: Houston's Katy Freeway went from HOV-3 to HOT-2 (and from 1 lane to 2) and seems to have gutted its slugging culture. People weren't willing to get into a strangers car anonymously by themselves (or have a single stranger in their car), it looks like 3 people, all strangers, is culturally different from 2. Also, HOT lanes seem to weaken slugging, even in DC where it was most strongly entrenched, the switch to HOT lanes seems to have weakened the culture, because people say 'I'll just pay today' rather than pick someone up. So it can spontaneously form, and when it does can be quite powerful, but is very fragile.

sokoloff 4y ago

I just did a 1500+ mile road trip over the holidays. During the drive, I was trying to figure out why old-tech (2005) cruise control worked so well. Even a 1 mph differential in speed is a car length change in following distance every 10 seconds. A 1/2 mph difference is 3 car lengths of change every minute. That seems like enough that would be annoying, but it obviously wasn’t when two cars are following each other both on cruise control. I still don’t have a fully satisfactory explanation for something that I can easily observe (that it’s usually not annoying).

saalweachter 4y ago
A 1 MPH pass doesn't take that long in absolute terms, but 15 car lengths (to maintain 7 car lengths in between at 70 MPH) still takes a solid 2.5 minutes to complete, during which you are nominally blocking the passing lane. (I say nominally because once there is a 2 car length gap between you and the other car, other drivers will be passing you on the right.)
- sokoloff 4y ago
  Agreed/sorry. I was trying to communicate about why it wasn’t annoying to be the following car for long distances on cruise at X mph (always in one lane), where the car in front is also at “close to X mph”, and where my cruise control has 1 mph increments via button pushes. Even being 1/2mph off seems like it would be annoying, but it didn’t seem to be.
progman32 4y ago
I've puzzled over this as well. Surely, the other car's cruise control isn't calibrated to the same 1mph increments as mine, yet it somehow works out. I wonder if it's an interaction with the leading driver. Perhaps they consciously or subconsciously keep distance from the car behind?

scotty79 4y ago

If you don't want to pass a car you just drop down the speed on cruise control and widen the gap between the car you don't want to pass and you. It really doesn't matter if you are 10m or 100m behind him if you are not going to pass it. And if you get too far behind him you might bump up the speed a notch. And if somebody gets in the gap it's even better because they are going to eventually overtake him just like they overtook you and overtaking one car at a time might be safer than two cars at once.

Gordonjcp 4y ago
I can't say I've ever seen a disadvantage in leaving "too big" a gap between me and the car in front. If someone wants to pass me and then sit up the other guy's arse, fine. I guarantee I'll be ten seconds behind them at the next road junction, or not much more. I don't think people realise that the relationship between road speed and journey time isn't linear - doing 90mph won't get you there appreciably faster than doing 60mph unless you're on a very long perfectly straight road with no junctions to turn off at.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
darkwater 4y ago
So basically doing manually what ACC does automatically for you
- progman32 4y ago
  The problem comes from having to mentally monitor an additional complex system (the ACC) in exchange for the meager attention savings gleaned from not having to closely adjust distance to the next car. That's "adjust", not "monitor". You'll still need to monitor distance to the next car either way, ACC is no excuse to drift off. For example, my non-Tesla ACC will randomly brake hard with no car ahead. I personally use my ACC as an extra set of eyes. I set it and still manually adjust my speed using the +spd and -spd buttons on my steering wheel. If the car ahead changes speed and I somehow fail to notice it, my car will give me one more chance by automatically slowing down a bit. But every time that happens I treat it as an "oops" like airplane pilots do when GPWS (ground proximity warning system) alerts fire. It's great that automation averted the problem, but it became a problem due to the pilot's error.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]