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Ford has had that since Blue Cruise 2.0, or thereabouts. It really shocked me how often it catches my attention being diverted. Things like talking to my passen
by awakeasleep 3mo ago
Ford has had that since Blue Cruise 2.0, or thereabouts. It really shocked me how often it catches my attention being diverted. Things like talking to my passengers, adjusting the climate controls, or eating- I'm not even talking about 'advanced distractions' like my phone.
It also seemed really accurate. I never remember it beeping at me when I was actually paying attention.
It's totally plausible to me that this kind of nudge will save a lot of lives.
- CGMthrowaway 3mo agoEye tracking
- recursive 3mo agoIt gives me false positives when I'm holding the wheel at the top and my wrist is blocking line of sight from the camera. On the other hand, sunglasses have never tripped it all.
- Dries007 3mo agoMy experience with my Volvo EX30 has been the complete opposite. Although the false positives have gone down with software updates, it's still wrong so often I turn it off every time it bothers me. Due to some other regulation, this setting is unfortunately not remembered. That means every time I get in the car, I have to spend time going trough the settings to disable it, often while already driving. Seems like a great idea. The biggest false positives involve singing or talking being mis-interpreted for yawning. Which then triggers a notification and a noise telling me "maybe it's time for a beak", which makes me look at the screen in the center console, which then triggers a second notification telling me to "please look at the road". Great system over all. 10/10 no notes.
- borosuxks 3mo agoI'm not sure it's actual regulations, but the Euro NCAP safety tests requiring all these "features" (like not remembering when you turn them off) to get a max score. And who doesn't want the safest car?
- calvinmorrison 3mo agohow much have cars safety improved in terms of crashes, airbags, etc, versus the robot will stop the crash?
- aenis 3mo agoImpossible to measure, many other uncontrolled variables - esp. significant improvements to infrastructure in Europe, and regulations. Take NL, where a crash involving a pedestrian or a cyclist effectively forces the driver to prove their innocence. I can walk across a Dutch town blindfolded with the biggest risk to my wellbeing being cyclists (well, and the canals). I'd guess the impact of those intervention dwarfs the "i will beep at you until i make you deaf if you don't put your seatbelt over your grocery bag" innovations.
- teki_one 3mo agoI grew up in/with cars which would score 0 (more like -3 to -5) and made it to adulthood, so I have a feeling that these features are not strictly neccesary. At the same time what if it saves at least one life a year? (same goes for riding with/without helmets)
- aucisson_masque 3mo agoMy father grew up drinking a ton of alcohol and smoking, like his friends. Many of them are dead. By your logic, we should keep drinking and smoking.
- slopinthebag 3mo agoWe should ban driving by your logic?
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- bigstrat2003 3mo ago
- cellular 3mo agoWhat happens if you wear sunglasses?
- aucisson_masque 3mo agoIs that the regulation that is bad or the way the manufacturer implemented it ? I think your comment and the one you were answering to explain it very well. Don't buy car that sucks.
- ihsw 3mo ago[dead]
- senordevnyc 3mo agoSounds about right for Volvo, sadly. I’ve owned four over the years, all great, but my most recent one has such dogshit software that I’ll never buy another Volvo.
- bigstrat2003 3mo agoMy wife's Volvo XC40 Recharge is the first Volvo we've ever had, and it's certainly the last I'll ever have (can't speak for her). The software is so flaky. The map screen on the dash doesn't load sometimes, the side mirrors don't tilt down (which they are set to do) when reversing half the time, and every so often the sound completely stops working in the car without a hard reboot of the info system. To make matters worse, it turns out that car operation signals (like turn signal clicks) play through the stereo, so when that happens you are driving without important audio cues because they were too damn cheap to put electronic clickers in the dash. It's probably the worst car I've ever owned, worse even than cars I got for way cheaper than the $50-60k they wanted for this thing. Never again, fuck Volvo.
- decryption 3mo agoI have an EX30 in Australia and it's been excellent in regards to its driver attention system. Never had any false alerts. If anything it's not accurate enough as when I look away it sometimes doesn't warn me! Crazy how we can have such different experiences in the same vehicle, presumably with the same software.
- gogusrl 3mo agoI also have an EX30 and while I have many many MANY complaints about this car, driver monitoring isn't one of them. Also disabling this feature is only 2 taps (because EU says it can't be only one tap), Settings -> toggle Driver Monitoring.
- dd82 3mo agogood way to get notification fatigue and tunnel vision. look ahead, ignore everything else and have a shocked pikachu face when you sideswipe someone because you're well trained to not check your blind spots
- gmueckl 3mo agoI need to call bullshit on this. I own the same system and it totally allows looking around for normal driving. Stare to the side or the center console for more than a few seconds and it will alert you - exactly at the point where it becomes recklessly unsafe to do so.
- cbg0 3mo agoThis will not get triggered by blind spot checks and most new cars have these inside the mirrors, so you won't even need to look over your shoulder.
- ErroneousBosh 3mo agoThe Kia Niro EVs I drive at work have something that apparently detects driver fatigue. I don't know what sets it off but it starts beeping at fire alarm levels and makes the huge LCD constantly flash up warnings, usually before I've even left the yard. There doesn't appear to be a way to turn it off or stop it, so you just have to put up with a constant "BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING" for the whole journey.
- xienze 3mo ago> It also seemed really accurate. It's really not. When I'm cruising on the highway I like to rest my right wrist on the top of the wheel, which blocks the sensor. "Watch the road" "Watch the road" "Watch the road"
- doublepg23 3mo agoMy Subaru Solterra / Toyota bz4X is the same way.
- throw2ih020 3mo ago> When I'm cruising on the highway I like to rest my right wrist on the top of the wheel, which blocks the sensor. Won't this shatter your wrist if your airbag deploys? I remember being taught to hold the sides of the wheel in driving class.
- xienze 3mo agoThere's theory and there's practice. In theory you're supposed to maintain 10 and 2 at all times. In practice, that gets fatiguing over long trips.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- hsbauauvhabzb 3mo agoSo what you’re saying is we need pressure sensors on the wheel to verify you’re holding it correctly?
- stubish 3mo agoHello from the 80s! It is now 9 and 3. This changed due to airbags and too many people learning what 'degloving' means.
- throwworhtthrow 3mo agoNHTSA now recommends "8 and 4" hand position. Did see the memo about this? I'll go ahead and make sure you get another copy of that memo: https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/steeringtechniques.pdf https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/steeringtechniqu...
- gmueckl 3mo agoOwned a Ford Mustang Mach-e with BkueCruise for about 3 years now. No obvious false alarms about missing attention. Interestingly, it doesn't get confused by my sunglasses and still catches me looking aside for too long. I think it is a rather good implementation overall.
- Bratmon 3mo ago> It also seemed really accurate. I never remember it beeping at me when I was actually paying attention. This is the exact opposite of my experience! The one time I tried BlueCruise, it went into "panic mode" every time I turned my head to check my blindspots.
- ButlerianJihad 3mo ago[flagged]
- wat10000 3mo agoShould have rolled the cost of the soda into your damages in the lawsuit.
- senordevnyc 3mo agoI honestly have zero idea how this is at all related to the story at hand, but the surfeit of unnecessary specific details is both enjoyable and making me slightly suspicious that this is AI :)
- BeetleB 3mo ago> adjusting the climate controls, Well if they hadn't removed climate control buttons, this would not be a concern! Not being able to easily adjust climate settings is very much a safety concern. And the fact that it beeps at you is them acknowledging it!
- awakeasleep 3mo agoThe truck I was driving had physical buttons for all the climate control functions, and for volume/on-off too. It wouldn't have been surprising to me if I was distracted fiddling with the screen, but it would give me the alert because I was playing with the buttons for an extended period of time.
- BeetleB 3mo agoAh - whenever I had a car with physical buttons, I could typically press the ones I wanted without looking. Fairly quickly too. That's why I hate screens.
- awakeasleep 3mo agoYep I found that was only true for me after the distraction-detector made me put conscious effort into using the buttons without looking. By default I'm a button-looker
- oalae5niMiel7qu 3mo agoThe fact that it beeps at you is also them blaming you for the problem.
- JsonDemWitOster 3mo ago> It's totally plausible to me that this kind of nudge will save a lot of lives. Probable especially if it gets drunk drivers off the road but I, for one, would be deeply uncomfortable driving knowing my every twitch is recorded and _more importantly_ open to misinterpretation in case of a claim. I could easily believe otherwise averagely fine drivers being negatively affected by this if the surveillance takes up headspace. Observation affects systems but not always for the better. I also wonder how well this fares under night driving conditions where the inside of the car has poor exposure. Related: https://petapixel.com/2025/07/11/dutch-woman-fined-500-after-traffic-camera-mistakes-ice-pack-for-phone/ https://petapixel.com/2025/07/11/dutch-woman-fined-500-after...
- rurp 3mo agoI don't doubt your experience but I've had the exact opposite experience with a Subaru where there were so many false positives it was worse than useless and was instead an active distraction. Given the general state of auto manufacturer software I would fully expect something like this to be janky and unreliable. It might work in some conditions on some faces but also perform abysmally in many other scenarios.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- deejaaymac 3mo agoI would argue that if someone can't safely operate a vehicle without this then maybe they shouldn't have a license
- Gander5739 3mo agoIf locks are to keep honest men honest, then driving monitoring cameras are to keep attentive drivers attentive.
- rsanek 3mo agoInteresting perspective. In my experience the risk is actually that it results in alert fatigue, which means that drivers that would otherwise pay attention to such an alert no longer do.
- DaSHacka 3mo agoYeah Subaru HQ clearly never heard of the term. On my recent vehicle it beeps for every damn thing. "Car has been driving for X hours" notification on the dot each hour. "WARNING: Washer Fluid Low" every 15 minutes or so while the washer fluid is low (that was a fun drive to autozone, getting nagged the whole way). It also beeps indefinitely if you first open the driver's side door before turning off the engine. You have to close and re-open the door to get it to stop. Also has 6 chimes on startup as punishment for daring to start the car without already having your seatbelt buckled. Not to mention the annoying chimes for actually having any seatbelt unbuckled in the vehicle. It fluctuates them, so you can't even tune it out, and has a tendency to go off if you're hauling heavy cargo. (Though granted, 3 quick prints on a 3D printer later and you'll never have to worry about it again. Next mod I'm doing to this car is ripping out the chime speaker. I'm just done. I learned to drive on a car that didn't have these chimes, and honestly it made for an easier driving experience.
- thebruce87m 3mo agoWhat exactly are you arguing for? Changes to the driving test to detect how someone reacts to distractions?
- joenot443 3mo ago> It's totally plausible to me that this kind of nudge will save a lot of lives. I think an in-car breathalyzer which gates the ignition would also save a lot of lives. Most people agree that kind of manufactured paternalism is an overreach and would be against its introduction. Other people say the same about the diverted driving detector, and I imagine others said the same about the seatbelt sensor. The intersection of personal freedom and personal safety is an interesting topic, I don't think there's a right answer and it's ultimately pretty subjective.
- Gigachad 3mo agoIt only sounds like overreach because we have become numb to an incredible amount of killing from distracted drivers.
- mattrighetti 3mo agoDid a quick research and saw that in 2024 there were around 12k deaths in which one or more drunk drivers were involved. Doesn’t seem like much for a country with around 350 million people. In comparison, drug causes 7x those deaths. Cancer and heart diseases even more.
- Gigachad 3mo agoThat's already a huge number. But it's ignoring the much larger issue of distracted drivers, usually on their phone.
- Klathmon 3mo agoI feel like we have the technology to prevent a car from starting if the driver is significantly impared, but "solving" addiction, cancer, and heart disease are much harder problems. Obviously it would need to be implemented carefully, but I personally would be more than fine blowing into a tube to start my car if it meant saving 12k lives a year with a very low false positive rate. That being said I know it would never be implemented in a sane way in the US, and you would probably have situations like your car insurance automatically increasing due to a faulty sensor, so I'm ultimately against it unless a lot of other stuff changes. But it's still much more possible than "preventing drug addiction"
- colechristensen 3mo agoI wear some pretty thick glasses and my parents' car CONSTANTLY beeped at me to pay attention to the road.
- sanmarzano 3mo agoThank you! I often feel like I’m in the minority on this site, it is nice to hear someone else articulate my feelings. Driving is a privilege not a right. But since America decided to decimate public transit in the early 20th century (and stick with it) we’re stuck with cars. So I’m in favor of anything that makes it safer. Hopefully this crosses the pond.
- mattrighetti 3mo ago> It's totally plausible to me that this kind of nudge will save a lot of lives. It’s also totally plausible that insurance companies will use this data to try and find every single tiny, irrelevant detail to not pay you. Sorry, you blinked before crashing into this other car, we won’t pay for that. Law enforcement could also use that data to create a nice profile of yourself and how “distracted” you are while driving, and maybe suspend your license forever, why not? And wait till you find how unreliable these sensors are. Just another surveillance tool in disguise, this is what the EU does best.
- Pxtl 3mo agoBut killing innocent bystanders is freedom!