Will DRCC Cruise Control or Front Collision prevention completely stop the car?

My impression, not yet measured, is the relative speed difference determines if the car will come to a stop on its own:

• ordinary stop and go traffic - DRCC will come to a complete stop with a full car length behind the lead vehicle. No fuss, no bother.
• coming on to stopped traffic at speeds of ~40 mph - DRCC will detect the stopped car but won't aggressively brake to avoid the collision. It will alert before the impact. Manual braking is strongly encouraged.

Bob Wilson

 

I use it regularly in stop & go traffic in traffic going through the Lincoln tunnel into nyc. works great. slows, stops, and if it traffic moves quick enough will pick up and start driving otherwise you have to tickle the stick to get it going again. I imagine that if I was coming up upon stopped traffic from high speeds that I would slow the car down manually. sometimes I pays to be a human with built-in sensor fusion.

 

Yes, it will totally stop the car

 

Please remember that this is not yet a self-driving car. Those are still at least three years away. Today's consumer-market driver assist features are getting much better, but are still several rating levels short of the accuracy and reliability required for hands- and feet-off driving.

Don't depend on this feature stopping the car. If you do, then when (not if) it fails to stop in time, if you survive and anyone else is injured or killed, expect very harsh penalties for (at least) gross or criminal negligence for willful improper driving. A murder charge is not out of the question, though criminally negligent homicide is more likely.

Always be ready to steer and stop the car completely manually.

As well you should. This is yet another clue that you must keep control, because the current assist system is not yet good enough to handle everything by itself.

There are systems that can do this, but they are still neither affordable to, nor certified for, the regular consumer market.

 

There is a thread here where someone posted a video testing the forward and rear collision control systems at low speed using a cardboard box.

Yes, it worked. Although I don't own a Prime, I wouldn't try - or recommend trying - it on a highway.

Toyota doesn't, to cover their corporate derriere. It's not meant to take your place, it's meant to augment.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

First of all I'm glad to see from your comments that you already know that you aren't supposed to fully rely on DRCC, and that you are just trying to understand more about what to expect from its operation.

You didn't mention it so I guess we can assume that you didn't change the vehicle-to-vehicle distance setting from the default of "long". There is a DRCC button on the steering wheel and if you press it then it cycles through long, medium and short, if you had changed it to medium or short this will make the DRCC more aggressive. Each time you start the car it defaults to long.

Yes, just like you would with regular cruise control. DRCC is really only good at following the vehicle in front of you, making for a more relaxing, less fatiguing drive either on the highway or in stop and go traffic since you don't have to constantly adjust your speed. But when you can see that things are coming to a full stop ahead of you that is when you should take over immediately and not wait for DRCC to react.

This is also the case if you are not following anyone at the moment but there is a car say a few hundred yards ahead of you going slower than you are so you will soon be overtaking them. If you are approaching them with a closing speed of say 5mph then DRCC should handle things pretty smoothly. However if they are going a lot slower than you are then you should cancel DRCC and do the approach manually, then once behind them you can resume DRCC.

Another situation is when a car cuts in front of you. Generally you will see that coming several seconds before DRCC does, so the moment that you see someone cutting in front of you cancel DRCC immediately and back off the throttle until they are in your lane at a safe distance then you can resume DRCC. I'm referring to when someone pulls into your lane in front of you at a very close distance. If they change into your lane ahead of you at a safe distance and just slightly slower speed then DRCC should be able to handle that smoothly.

Also whenever possible be sure to cancel DRCC by pulling on the lever and not by tapping the brake pedal. Tapping on the brake will flash your brake lights which will cause the driver behind you to react abruptly since he doesn't know if maybe you are slamming on your brakes to avoid something.

 

I’ve wanted to try a find a empty parking lot and do a 40 mph into a big refrigerator cardboard box test. I’ve just never found the time or the box

 

Today I had the experience of driving on the highway at 65 mph using (regular) cruise control and there was an object that looked like a ladder lying across the lane I was in. I guess it had fallen off someone's truck. There was no time to stop by the time I noticed it, so I had to swerve into the next lane. Good thing I was paying attention and good thing nobody was in the other lane.