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EU driving assists are obtrusive to the point of making driving less safe in my experience. Great video on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-S76WEl

by afarah1 3mo ago

EU driving assists are obtrusive to the point of making driving less safe in my experience. Great video on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-S76WEl25k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-S76WEl25k

cellular 3mo ago
How many bells would sound if SUNGLASSES hid your eyes?!
- EA-3167 3mo ago
  I can answer this, since I have a new car with this camera and polarized sunglasses. MOST of the time it's good about telling when I'm looking and when I'm not, out of maybe... 5 alerts over the previous 8 months all, but one occurred when I was in fact looking away for one reason or another. Likewise when it's correct my lane-keeping it's been right about me drifting. Given how inattentive I see other drivers being, on their phones for example, and taking into account that I'm (based on my record) a good driver who is attentive... I appreciate these additions. I doubt that they make us less safe, we just dislike anyone or anything telling us how to drive, because "we already know what we're doing." The subjective experience of being distracted however isn't usually so clear-cut, it FEELS like you're paying attention. Note: This is a new model Lexus, so I expect this represents that brand as well as Toyota, but beyond that I don't know.
  - dylan604 3mo ago
    Just because it's available in a Lexus does not mean it's available in a Corolla
    - Reason077 3mo ago
      In Europe it does. ADDW is required in all new vehicles, including Corollas.
  - Brian_K_White 3mo ago
    There is no way that training people not to worry is making us all safer. I don't even like how new cars have this thing where they will automatically hold the brake once stopped even if you let go. There is no way it's a net good to train people that running cars just stay where you put them like an inert object does.
    - EA-3167 3mo ago
      The result for me has been pretty predictable, I'm getting a kind of corrective feedback so I drive in a way that prevents that feedback. The practical result is that imo I'm a better driver, I'm more aware of my lapses in attention, my tendency to overcorrect to the right, and so on. I'm yet to experience a downside, this isn't like using "Autopilot" or some other situation where a machine is taking over for me. I don't see why our skills or caution would be lessened by exposure to realtime feedback.
    - Reason077 3mo ago
      Cars have had that feature ("hill hold assist") for 20+ years now. Even longer for high-end models. There can't be all that many vehicles left on the road that don't have it. Besides, you could make such an argument for any safety feature: "I don't like how new cars have ABS brakes. We shouldn't be training people that you can just slam on the brakes on a slippery surface and expect the wheels to not lock up..." ... "I don't like how new cars have seatbelts. We shouldn't train people that they can just crash into things and not have their face go through the windshield"...
      - eurleif 3mo ago
        The GP seems to be describing "auto hold", which is a different feature from hill start assist, and is newer and less prevalent.
        Reason077 3mo ago
        OK. But it's essentially the same concept. Just that auto hold will go a step further and apply the park brake to hold the car in position indefinitely rather than just for a few seconds. There have been many deaths over the years where drivers forgot to engage the park brake, then stepped out and got run over by their own vehicle. Including, sadly, Star Trek actor Anton Yelchin. If his car had had Auto Hold then he would very likely still be alive today. The only scenario where this could have a negative effect on safety is where you, the driver, were used to driving a car with the feature but got surprised by its absence when driving an old car. But as I facetiously illustrated in the post above, this is not a valid argument against new safety features. Any accidents that this scenario might cause are far outweighed by all the ones that will be prevented in the long run.
- Reason077 3mo ago
  In my experience (Tesla), attention monitoring works well even when I'm wearing sunglasses. The camera can still see my eyes even through dark polarised lenses. It may depend on the sunglasses, however - other people report problems with sunglasses that have mirrored lenses etc.
  - jongjong 3mo ago
    It's a matter of time before someone invents sunglasses with eyes painted on the lenses.
    - jazzyjackson 3mo ago
      https://holographer.com/product/hologram-eye-sunglasses/ https://holographer.com/product/hologram-eye-sunglasses/
  - inventor7777 3mo ago
    Sometimes I wonder if Tesla also has a much better software stack than most other manufacturers. IIRC, Tesla has had interior cameras in their cars for years now and I haven't heard about major issues stemming from it.
    - Reason077 3mo ago
      The camera was not actually used initially. With the old Autopilot software, attention monitoring was (and still is?) exclusively done with steering wheel torque sensors. Our camera got enabled when we purchased the FSD upgrade. I do agree the software is good, however: it's both more effective and much less naggy/annoying than the old "hands on wheel" method. It still falls back on the torque sensor (requiring hands on wheel) if it thinks you're not paying enough attention, or if it can't see your eyes for whatever reason. And I guess Tesla must have enabled the camera for all new vehicles now, at least in Europe, given that it's required.
      - inventor7777 3mo ago
mort96 3mo ago
IMO most features are annoying and contribute to alarm fatigue and driver irritation, but are not directly dangerous. Lane keep assist though? I often drive on narrow country roads barely wide enough for two cars, with a white line on each side but no center line. To avoid large oncoming cars, I need to drive on the white line to my right. When I do, lane keep assist activates motors in my steering wheel which try to force the car into the oncoming traffic. Easy to turn on in the modern car I sometimes drive, but oh my god, that was scary the first few times it happened. Beeping at me is bad enough but messing with the steering wheel??? This should be illegal, not required! I'm mostly pro EU but this crap is genuinely making me resent them.
- BeetleB 3mo ago
  Can't you turn that feature off? I often complain about the lack of buttons, but my car actually has a dedicated button to turn this safety feature off. IIRC, veering from the lane is the cause of most collisions, so it makes sense to have this.
  - mort96 3mo ago
    You can't turn it off, you can temporarily disable it but it gets enabled again the next time you get in the car. Regardless, I feel like maybe "suddenly automatically jerk the steering wheel to drive into oncoming traffic" mode should maybe be off by default? Although it would definitely make me less angry if it could be turned off.
    - hparadiz 3mo ago
      A "feature" like this can easily kill someone in some of the sketchy mountain roads I've been on in Crete.
  - vladvasiliu 3mo ago
    > IIRC, veering from the lane is the cause of most collisions, so it makes sense to have this. My dad's Toyota has this. The issue is it seems to have a hard time actually centering itself in the lane, so it'll just sway from side to side like a drunk driver if the lane is somewhat narrow. And you can forget about driving on secondary roads, which usually don't have markings on the sides. It'll keep trying to drive in the middle of the road. It's also extremely dangerous to try to correct your trajectory when there's an oncoming car on one of these roads where two cars barely fit, and you have to basically drive on the shoulder. Then there's the collision detection thing. It's basically guaranteed to beep at me whenever I enter my parents' narrow street with cars parked on both sides. Bonus points for it just beeping whenever it's unhappy about something, without having any kind of "log". So if you don't look at the instrument cluster at the exact moment it beeps, you'll have no idea what it wanted. I know about the "imminent collision" one because I saw the dashboard turn red from the corner of my eye and immediately complained to my dad about it. Apparently it does it pretty often when he's maneuvering in and out of the garage. Now, I know many people drive without paying any kind of attention to traffic, which is obviously very dangerous. But I'm not convinced these systems are that useful if people get used to ignoring them.
LtWorf 3mo ago
My toyota has one that when you're in a narrow road with parked cars that you must drive around, it constantly thinks it's going to do a frontal collision. Except it detects it like half a second too late, when I've already avoided the parked car (this happens at rather slow speeds).
arjie 3mo ago
Isn't that just cultural? Go to a German or French website and you'll be met with a big popover with a bunch of options, half a page of legalese, and some buttons. Pick a Japanese site and you'll get a maximal amount of information packed together. Pick an American site and you'll get the heavy on the whitespace layout. Seems to be the cultural aesthetic choice.
cucumber3732842 3mo ago
> to the point of making driving less safe... But they make it less safe in a hard to measure poorly defined way whereas they make it safer in a measured easy to take credit for way. The safety industry (or whoever, not really sure exactly who's benefitting here) destroying $2 of value to put $1 in their pockets. Textbook example of economic broken windows.

by afarah1 3mo ago

cellular 3mo ago

How many bells would sound if SUNGLASSES hid your eyes?!

EA-3167 3mo ago
I can answer this, since I have a new car with this camera and polarized sunglasses. MOST of the time it's good about telling when I'm looking and when I'm not, out of maybe... 5 alerts over the previous 8 months all, but one occurred when I was in fact looking away for one reason or another. Likewise when it's correct my lane-keeping it's been right about me drifting. Given how inattentive I see other drivers being, on their phones for example, and taking into account that I'm (based on my record) a good driver who is attentive... I appreciate these additions. I doubt that they make us less safe, we just dislike anyone or anything telling us how to drive, because "we already know what we're doing." The subjective experience of being distracted however isn't usually so clear-cut, it FEELS like you're paying attention. Note: This is a new model Lexus, so I expect this represents that brand as well as Toyota, but beyond that I don't know.
- dylan604 3mo ago
  Just because it's available in a Lexus does not mean it's available in a Corolla
  - Reason077 3mo ago
    In Europe it does. ADDW is required in all new vehicles, including Corollas.
- Brian_K_White 3mo ago
  There is no way that training people not to worry is making us all safer. I don't even like how new cars have this thing where they will automatically hold the brake once stopped even if you let go. There is no way it's a net good to train people that running cars just stay where you put them like an inert object does.
  - EA-3167 3mo ago
    The result for me has been pretty predictable, I'm getting a kind of corrective feedback so I drive in a way that prevents that feedback. The practical result is that imo I'm a better driver, I'm more aware of my lapses in attention, my tendency to overcorrect to the right, and so on. I'm yet to experience a downside, this isn't like using "Autopilot" or some other situation where a machine is taking over for me. I don't see why our skills or caution would be lessened by exposure to realtime feedback.
  - Reason077 3mo ago
    Cars have had that feature ("hill hold assist") for 20+ years now. Even longer for high-end models. There can't be all that many vehicles left on the road that don't have it. Besides, you could make such an argument for any safety feature: "I don't like how new cars have ABS brakes. We shouldn't be training people that you can just slam on the brakes on a slippery surface and expect the wheels to not lock up..." ... "I don't like how new cars have seatbelts. We shouldn't train people that they can just crash into things and not have their face go through the windshield"...
    - eurleif 3mo ago
      The GP seems to be describing "auto hold", which is a different feature from hill start assist, and is newer and less prevalent.
      - Reason077 3mo ago
        OK. But it's essentially the same concept. Just that auto hold will go a step further and apply the park brake to hold the car in position indefinitely rather than just for a few seconds. There have been many deaths over the years where drivers forgot to engage the park brake, then stepped out and got run over by their own vehicle. Including, sadly, Star Trek actor Anton Yelchin. If his car had had Auto Hold then he would very likely still be alive today. The only scenario where this could have a negative effect on safety is where you, the driver, were used to driving a car with the feature but got surprised by its absence when driving an old car. But as I facetiously illustrated in the post above, this is not a valid argument against new safety features. Any accidents that this scenario might cause are far outweighed by all the ones that will be prevented in the long run.
Reason077 3mo ago
In my experience (Tesla), attention monitoring works well even when I'm wearing sunglasses. The camera can still see my eyes even through dark polarised lenses. It may depend on the sunglasses, however - other people report problems with sunglasses that have mirrored lenses etc.
- jongjong 3mo ago
  It's a matter of time before someone invents sunglasses with eyes painted on the lenses.
  - jazzyjackson 3mo ago
    https://holographer.com/product/hologram-eye-sunglasses/ https://holographer.com/product/hologram-eye-sunglasses/
- inventor7777 3mo ago
  Sometimes I wonder if Tesla also has a much better software stack than most other manufacturers. IIRC, Tesla has had interior cameras in their cars for years now and I haven't heard about major issues stemming from it.
  - Reason077 3mo ago
    The camera was not actually used initially. With the old Autopilot software, attention monitoring was (and still is?) exclusively done with steering wheel torque sensors. Our camera got enabled when we purchased the FSD upgrade. I do agree the software is good, however: it's both more effective and much less naggy/annoying than the old "hands on wheel" method. It still falls back on the torque sensor (requiring hands on wheel) if it thinks you're not paying enough attention, or if it can't see your eyes for whatever reason. And I guess Tesla must have enabled the camera for all new vehicles now, at least in Europe, given that it's required.
    - inventor7777 3mo ago

mort96 3mo ago

IMO most features are annoying and contribute to alarm fatigue and driver irritation, but are not directly dangerous. Lane keep assist though? I often drive on narrow country roads barely wide enough for two cars, with a white line on each side but no center line. To avoid large oncoming cars, I need to drive on the white line to my right. When I do, lane keep assist activates motors in my steering wheel which try to force the car into the oncoming traffic. Easy to turn on in the modern car I sometimes drive, but oh my god, that was scary the first few times it happened. Beeping at me is bad enough but messing with the steering wheel??? This should be illegal, not required! I'm mostly pro EU but this crap is genuinely making me resent them.

BeetleB 3mo ago
Can't you turn that feature off? I often complain about the lack of buttons, but my car actually has a dedicated button to turn this safety feature off. IIRC, veering from the lane is the cause of most collisions, so it makes sense to have this.
- mort96 3mo ago
  You can't turn it off, you can temporarily disable it but it gets enabled again the next time you get in the car. Regardless, I feel like maybe "suddenly automatically jerk the steering wheel to drive into oncoming traffic" mode should maybe be off by default? Although it would definitely make me less angry if it could be turned off.
  - hparadiz 3mo ago
    A "feature" like this can easily kill someone in some of the sketchy mountain roads I've been on in Crete.
- vladvasiliu 3mo ago
  > IIRC, veering from the lane is the cause of most collisions, so it makes sense to have this. My dad's Toyota has this. The issue is it seems to have a hard time actually centering itself in the lane, so it'll just sway from side to side like a drunk driver if the lane is somewhat narrow. And you can forget about driving on secondary roads, which usually don't have markings on the sides. It'll keep trying to drive in the middle of the road. It's also extremely dangerous to try to correct your trajectory when there's an oncoming car on one of these roads where two cars barely fit, and you have to basically drive on the shoulder. Then there's the collision detection thing. It's basically guaranteed to beep at me whenever I enter my parents' narrow street with cars parked on both sides. Bonus points for it just beeping whenever it's unhappy about something, without having any kind of "log". So if you don't look at the instrument cluster at the exact moment it beeps, you'll have no idea what it wanted. I know about the "imminent collision" one because I saw the dashboard turn red from the corner of my eye and immediately complained to my dad about it. Apparently it does it pretty often when he's maneuvering in and out of the garage. Now, I know many people drive without paying any kind of attention to traffic, which is obviously very dangerous. But I'm not convinced these systems are that useful if people get used to ignoring them.

LtWorf 3mo ago

My toyota has one that when you're in a narrow road with parked cars that you must drive around, it constantly thinks it's going to do a frontal collision. Except it detects it like half a second too late, when I've already avoided the parked car (this happens at rather slow speeds).

arjie 3mo ago

Isn't that just cultural? Go to a German or French website and you'll be met with a big popover with a bunch of options, half a page of legalese, and some buttons. Pick a Japanese site and you'll get a maximal amount of information packed together. Pick an American site and you'll get the heavy on the whitespace layout. Seems to be the cultural aesthetic choice.

cucumber3732842 3mo ago

> to the point of making driving less safe... But they make it less safe in a hard to measure poorly defined way whereas they make it safer in a measured easy to take credit for way. The safety industry (or whoever, not really sure exactly who's benefitting here) destroying $2 of value to put $1 in their pockets. Textbook example of economic broken windows.