Discovering Increasing Automation in my new car

I don't think it's all positive...I dislike a lot of the driver aids in my new car ..

So much so that I knock them off...there's a lane departure thing that pisses me off no end...there are times when I need to go over a line without my steering wheel being jerked the other way....

I wouldn't be caught dead in a Ford Focus.😱

I like ACC and the emergency stop when reversing if someone steps in behind. Also same for car breaking unexpectedly in front of you. I don't have lane assist which is what most people seem to give out about .

The problem with this automation is that it mostly works but not quite. So when you drive from Blacklion to Belcoo it cannot tell the difference between speed limits in Kmh and mph and if there is speed limit sign missing it hasn't a clue. However, warnings can enhance safety and this technology will become common in regular cars, as a spinoff from the development of automated cars

lane keep assist on Kerry roads especially on BMW is a nightmare. I turn it off. It throws you into the ditch.

Adjusting automatically is good for sure. However, I think of one place where the local authority imposed a 50Kmh limit for a small hamlet with a school, they erected large signs at either end imposing this limit but did not put 80kmh signs on the reverse for people leaving the restriction (I actually pointed this out and they later erected 80kmh signs). Any observant driver knows that the speed limit changed there, but the car would have you drive at 50kmh for the next 5Km.

Authorities could provide a digital speed limit database, but reading signs is prone to error.

I'm not sure I see this as a positive for road safety. It's bling for making the sale, and no substance behind it. Are there any studies that suggest these make you safer, or a better driver?

For example I've seen a car that has little lights to tell you whether your left or right blindspot is occupied. Perfect, that's useful. But can I rely on it? If I see the light telling me it's clear to my side and I move to the lane only to crash into someone in it will Toyota step forward, pay my premiums? Will Gardai say it's grand the computer failed it's not my fault?

No! It's 100% my fault. I'm supposed to check my blindspot, myself with my own eyes. That makes sense. So I don't get it, it's extra flashing lights and sounds and limitations on my driving but ultimately Gardai or RSA or the kind people of the boards or the poor sod I crash into will tell me I was not supposed to use them. And they're right. So it's an extra distraction, or a crutch I will be burnt for using. And if I do against all advice rely on it, I will build horrendous habits.

I think this is technology getting ahead of regulation. I welcome exploring more features that can make our lives better, but I honestly think the manufacturers of these systems need to be held accountable for when they fail. If I crash because the car gave me wrong information to go off on, or the wheel locked because it misread the lining on the road I want to see that investigated and accountable. And we need this done, because next up is self driving and already we're saying yes the car drives itself but it's the driver who needs to be ready to come in and act if anything goes wrong. The manufacturer can take the profit but if anything at all goes wrong it's personal responsibility. We set this up in the most corporate favoring, nightmarish way possible.

I don't think any of us should be happy to see a system where the drivers are accountable for their cars programming, and it doesn't encourage that programming to be good it's specifically encouraging the opposite.

It varies by make and model. With my current car it stays off until I decide to turn it on again. With my last car I had to turn it off every time I started the car.

we recently had the State here redo our roads. The ramp into the office is rather steep and the state decided to pit a different coloured concrete on the road outside the ramp.

one of my cars sees it as a danger when I reverse and slams the brakes on first time frightened the sh1te out of me. So now I take the other car unless I have large goods needed.

Have to say cruising with lane assist and auto speed distance control while setting your speed, is so easy especially on highways. The cars look at surroundings and warn you. It also monitors driver condition and tells you when you’re tired. Take a break coffee etc. after a long day it’s very welcome, seeing as we all think we are the worlds best drivers😀

From 2024 all new cars will have an excessive speed notification system that cannot be turned off, every time when you start the car, it goes back to its default state. While the intent is good, the intelligent sign assist (road sign recognition) currently is not reliable. I have tested cars from multiple vendors and these are common issues:

When driving on a highway it often reads signs from slip roads. If you are driving on ACC with ISA, it is dangerous as it will suddenly slow your car from 120 kph to 60 kph

It does not read temporary sign that do not have a red circle

Some cars ignore temporary signs with a red circle when they are installed too low

Some cars do not understand the difference between miles and kilometres

See if you can change it with VCDS/OBDEleven/similar?

On my 2012 A7 the Start-Stop functionality is (by default) activated everytime I switch on the engine. Drives me nuts. Can't stand it and was turning it off manually each time using the button on the dash, but using OBDEleven I was able to set it to remember the last setting on power-up (also allows it to be turned off completely as well).

Sometimes (randonly every few weeks) it seems to reset to default (always on) but pressing the button puts it back into memory mode.

I would suggest that anything safety related would need to be done as a product recall like what currently happens all the time when mechanical parts are discovered to be faulty

If it's part of the infotainment or non safety related and the car can continue to function without an update, you'll just keep the old software for the service life of the vehicle.

If it's an enthusiasts car, there is the possibility that there could be after market software updates, you could in theory be able to replace the or flash the ECU with a modified version of the software although this would require that the EU takes the 'right to repair' seriously and doesn't allow manufacturers to lock every single component to the original vehicle they were installed on)

I think your opening line is ignoring the extremely well known fact that road fatalities have been steadily falling pretty much every year since the 1960s, where there was far fewer cars on the road. Of course that is down to safer roads, and less drink driving, but also part of a larger road safety strategy which has a major focus on vehicle safety.

A few naysayers decried the introduction of ABS and ESC for similar reasons to you post, and the one I have quoted below, and sure, neither are necessarily your friend when trying to control a car on black ice, but for 99% of drivers, in 99% of scenarios, they're in your corner, mopping up your slow reaction times, and lack of experience with oversteer on a dark wet night when you're tired on the way home from work.

Technology will always be fallible, so don't let perfection be the enemy of progress. Most of the issues you've listed above are down to lack of training, meaning lack of knowledge, and therefore lack of interest by drivers in general.

I do understand your point though, there is a human element that can't be ignored, as it too often is, but training upfront, not liability afterward is the important part.

What have the RSA done to adjust their training in the past 10 years to teach drivers how blind spot monitoring works? Do they (via ADIs) teach people how the EU mandated AEB systems work, and more importantly what they won't do? How to properly drive a car with Active Cruise Control? They're asleep at the wheel, forgive the pun.

Salespeople are to blame too, they're not interested in actually teaching people how this tech works. My car can honestly almost drive itself on the motorway, but the salesman hadn't a clue.

IMO, at minimum, you should be forced to watch a lengthy video from the manufacturer once a year, on the car screen, which explains how the ADAS features work.

But overall, what is really needed is standardisation for all of the above features, driven by the EU, so that I know when I get into a car with "Blind Spot Monitoring", I know that it's going to react in a very similar way in a Mini as in an MG.

https://www.rsa.ie/docs/default-source/road-safety/r2---statistics/road-deaths-in-ireland-1959/road-deaths-in-ireland-1959-to-2020.pdf?sfvrsn=2f120623_7

Realistically, arguing against safety systems which are statistically proven to save lives en masse, because someone could drive an older car and get into a collision is a stretch to say the absolute minimum.

When I get into my mothers car, I do have to take a second to remind myself that I haven't got the same tech as my own car, but that's one small step backward for me, while a hundred thousand newer, ever safer cars will hit the roads this year.

The point of these warnings (Like BLS) is to warn you if your blind spot is occupied by another car. Yes you should always check, but that doesn't invalidate its effectiveness in the case where somebody is in imminent danger of a collision. The advice to not rely on them is simply to stop people using them as the only indication of it being safe to change lanes or pull out into traffic. The training (I assume) is to remind people that having these warnings doesn't mean that they can now stop using their mirrors.

Same here, but surely we are the worst drivers ever (except for our parents who really hadn't a clue) or was it the cars? There were far less cars on the road and the fatality numbers were in their five hundreds per year. I find younger drivers in present time where I'm from in Dublin are much more responsible and mature in comparison the carry on when we learned to drive.

Yes, so I'm supposed to check the system - the light, for whether my blindspot is occupied, and then confirm it as usual with my own eyes. Now I would think that observing with my own eyes already is a check. So the way I see it either:

1. Observation with eyes is not enough, so all cars should be REQUIRED to have assistance systems and our road rules including RSA and driving ed need to require these as part of observation .

or

2. Observation with eyes is enough, and these extra systems and lights are an added distraction and an extra lights distracting you from the road.

Now I'm leaning 2 personally, because I'm careful and my sight is OK so if I checked with my eyes I don't need a gizmo to second guess that. But under either scenario I just don't see how that system logically slots into road safety.