Dynamic Radar Cruise Control

It is an aid, not an autonomous driving system.

Bob Wilson

 

Not in all situations!!!

This may work with the previous model's cruise control, where it cancels below certain speeds, but I think the only safe course of action is to be ready with the accelerator with Full Speed Cruise Control when you expect it to disengage as it will quickly become dangerous in certain situations!!! The full speed cruise control will not reactivate under 30 mph (real world 28 mph) if no preceding vehicle is detected. See page 308 of the manual.

So imagine you are approaching an intersection, where the car in front of you is slowing down to make a turn. The full speed cruise control is conservative and slows you down to 5 mph, because the vehicle in front of you has slowed. The previous Prius' cruise control would have canceled already for lack of speed and you would be in control of the vehicle already. Now the vehicle in front of you completes the turn and your cruise control deactivates with no preceding vehicle and there isn't one in front of you for a mile.

There is either a car behind you or car in oncoming traffic turning left waiting for you to clear the intersection. Now your cruise control has deactivated and you're traveling at 5 mph with your finger frantically pushing the up on the stalk trying to get the cruise control to reactivate, and the car behind you is either going to hit your or the oncoming car turning left is going to hit you, because they're expecting you to clear the intersection, but you won't, but you're just slowly rolling trying to figure out why your cruise control won't reactivate. I experienced this a few times, before I understood what was happening and was not ready for it!

I understand where you guys are coming from, but I think that it is very odd to suddenly come up on a slightly moving car that stops while in range of your radar and the whole system decelerates successfully with no complaint, but if the car in front of you happens to be completely stopped when it enters radar range, the system acts as if the car isn't even there until the emergency system kicks in. It's not very intuitive at all.

Anyways, I just want to say that I used this today driving into Chicago during Rush Hour and it was amazing. I only had to drive in full manual mode during the short stretch where 90/94 merge and the system kept the car moving at a constant speed instead of jerky stop and go the whole time. I didn't feel angry or stressed at all after 1.5 hours of driving through heavy traffic. It's a great product and I really love it

 

Not disagreeing as much as suggesting there may be a better approach:

Old school, I'm used to learning how a system works and then driving it to maximize results. However, there is merit in pointing out safety risks. I've done that with what I learned about running out of gas and the absence of alerts and alarms. So there is another approach.

Write up your description and share it with NHTSA and IIS. For good measure, copy your Congress critters and ask them to pass it on to NHTSA. Send a copy to Toyota USA, somewhere in Texas. There are no guarantees but silence delays the inevitable.

Bob Wilson