Featured CR on Driver Assist Systems

According to who?

https://article.images.consumerreports.org/image/upload/v1658777041/prod/content/dam/CRO-Images-2022/Cars/07July/Clearing-the-Confusion-7-26-22.pdf
Driver Assistance Technologies | NHTSA

Neither of those specify how the warning has to be conveyed.

 

Off a near free fall over a 250' cliff onto rocks below? I'd say this is pretty rare to survive...as did the rescue crew and all the news reports

(glad you and family survived OK)

Mike

See picture

 

Maybe it's not clear. On the Tesla (at least my M3) if you put on the turn signal and there is a car or other object nearby in that lane the 3D visualization on the screen shades that object in red. The audible alert is an option.
If you are driving in Autopilot or FSD you can also use the turn signal if you want to force a lane change.
It also highlights near objects in red.
If it is tracking an object and will continue the lane change after it passes by (for example) it highlights the object in blue.
It also highlights the space in the adjacent lane that it is proposing to move into so you can see that it has a clear path
(This is from memory so I might have some specific details wrong)

Mike

 

Yes, I exaggerated, but it is not semantics. Toyota BSM warns you even if you do not steer. Tesla BSM does not. I do not want to steer toward a car in my blind spot and risk a collision or being shot at. This is not quantum mechanics. You should be able to make a measurement without disturbing the system.

I see cameras displaying on the tablet mentioned. I don't know how convenient that is, but perhaps that could work. It could be hard to look at the tablet and also in the mirror/toward the side when changing lanes. Toyota BSM is in the mirror; so, you don't have that problem. Perhaps cameras could eliminate the need for the mirror.

Moreover, Toyota BSM is radar, and it works with cars that forget to turn their lights on at night. Tesla BSM might not.

 

I was curious about that 250 foot sheer cliff, so I pulled up google earth and looked at the area. At 37.56948, -122.51534 ( closest match I could find to the topography) the road above is 226 feet above the beach. The wreckage was found almost 210 feet west from where it would have left the roadway. According to the topographic maps, the embankment was close to a 45 degree slope that they slid down. I would not have characterized it as a free fall. This one looks like it rolled. You can still see the frunk.

This is a good topo tool once you get used to it. Calfire_Topo_map_link

 

The chimes work if you drift or steer or put on your directional. I know most people don't, but you should put your turn signal on and then the system works without steering ;-)

That mirror indicator is really inferior to the display in the tesla. It is easy to glance at the display. Its large and easy to read. You can see the cars in relation to yourself easily on the screen.

Unlikely with us safety regulations. Still I'm sure tesla and others want to allow people to run with camera's and no mirrors. Electronics fail, so its good to have a simple back up.

If you are driving your tesla at night in auto headlight mode the tailights should illuminate objects where toyota's rear radar is looking even without them having lights on.

When I received my tesla in 2018 it had the hardware for blind spot monitoring but it wasn't active. When they upgraded my computer and added more software it had good visualization in the blind spot. It wasn't until December of 2021 that blind spot monitoring really improved with software. I believe it was the middle of last year when they let you move where the camera was displayed on turn signals. It is very good but likely still improving. I'm sure it will be better with hardware 4 with better cameras and a faster computer, I won't get the better cameras but expect them to upgrade my computer for free to process the current cameras and radar better.

My gf bought a used 2019 bmw with the turn signal indicator. It is good to stop you from moving but it is not nearly as good as the tesla which provides very quick easy to see information. I have not driven a toyota with bsm other than a rental so do not know how it compares. Both the toyota and tesla systems should help reduce accidents. I expect in a decade everyone will have those side cameras and display on turn signals on a screen.

 

Those proverbs greatly suffer from psychological projection. Our former president excelled at it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection

 

Toyota's blind-spot monitor lights steady orange if turn signals not activated and rapidly flashes orange if turn signals activated.

This is Consumer Report's take, which I strongly agree:

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Blind-spot warning—The Model 3 doesn’t have a traditional blind-spot warning system with icons that are visible in the side mirrors. Instead, it displays an image of the car in the center screen and shows images of surrounding vehicles. Red lines are displayed when a vehicle or object is in close proximity. In our experience, this is an inadequate warning system as drivers naturally check the mirror for a blind spot warning, and not a center screen.
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Again, industry standards are always better than nonstandard implementations. This is not to say that video monitoring is useful, but it should be the secondary, not the primary blind-spot monitor.

 

This is similar to the bmw bsm that I have driven. It works well.

BSM is fairly new. I certainly did not have it on my gen 3 prius, so the tesla is the first car I have owned with it. I do not think there is an industry standard yet, but Lexus, Audi, Honda, Tesla all have systems that use cameras and inside the car display screens for blind spot monitoring. Some people will probably prefer one, some the other, unless you do testing with large groups we will not know which one is safer.

The mirrorless system was an option in the japanese Lexus ES way back in 2018. You need physical mirrors in the US, but not in Japan or Europe.
It's Amazing How Quickly The Brain Adapts To The New Digital Mirrors On The Japanese 2020 Lexus ES

The toyota Engineers for the 2018 model basically retrofitted the cameras where the mirrors normally would be. They can locate them in a better place as tesla has done. I'm sure toyota/Lexus can provide an even better system today. Different people will prefer different systems. The industry standard side mirror is not the best system for seeing but it works. If engineers at all these major auto companies are working on a better solution I'm not sure why we should stop that progress.

 

There is no standard. There isn't even a standard naming convention for these systems.

 

That is certainly an improvement. Hopefully TSS 3.0 has it.

 

Anecdote: A friend traded in his Toyota RAv4 for a Honda Civic precisely because of the lack of an audible BSM on the Toyota. They were used to both mirror light and audio warnings when you put the turn signal on the change lanes and there was a vehicle in your danger zone accelerating faster than you of at the same rate.

I'm driving down the road and I want to change lanes presumably because of a vehicle in front of me. I look in my side view mirror as I turn on my turn signal. The BSM should have already warned me by virtue of the glance at the side mirror that it would be safe or not. Last thing I want to do is have to look at a center mounted screen to see a red item. Just more distraction from the item in front of the car that I'm trying to avoid. What if it slows to stops? If I start to turn into a dangerous situation, I get an audible warning and even a steering wheel jerk away which I then can amplify or override because by that time I've assessed the comparative dangers. Toyota '19 era system.

 

The Rav4(2016?) we test drove had an audible warning for the rear cross traffic alert in the rear. That is using the same sensors as BSM. Didn't try out the BSM. Tesla does have an audible alarm for BSM. Needs to be turned on in the settings though. maybe that's the case with Toyota. The Outback doesn't have an audible alarm, but I haven't checked for settings changes. Just checked the Rav4(2020) manual, and the buzzer is only for the RCTA.

I've found the audible alarms in the Outback causes me to check the dash display to see what exactly the warning is for.

 

I think different people will have different preferences. My gen 3 prius had a center screen as does the current one. camera based bsm can be much less distracting and take less time then using a mirror.

I definitely get the quibble with having the side camera views to the right of the driver. It becomes instinctive fairly quickly in the tesla. I check to see vehicles are in my blind spot before I turn my head to confirm in the mirror. There is a learning curve on these systems.

Honda is trying to put it more centered as you can see if you click the link.
Honda e To Get Side Camera Mirror System As Standard

In the US we won't get the advantage of better aerodynamics and lower road noise but can get the advantage of a more full easy to see picture especially in bad weather and at night. I like the honda placement better than the e-tron and lexus that were trying to mimic the physical mirrors and the tesla which pushes the vision further from the road. Someone will get it right.

I like the lexus ES intererior rear view display is on the rearview mirror, and it can be switched to a phyiscical mirror.

An advantage of a camera and monitor instead of a mirror system is sometimes I need to drive my gf in her car as she gets car sick more easily in mine, she also gets too buzzed to drive often, so I often drive us home if I am not. Her seats have a memory for my position too, but I manually change the mirrors, and when she drives to work before 6 in the moring sometimes she forgets to change them back. Cameras don't really need to be adjusted.

 

I'd like to start this post with the acknowledgment that cameras and mirrors each have their own advantage in avoiding accidents originating with unseen traffic in your blind spot. I'd also like to point out that your blind spot is not just that 20 foot swath of road immediately adjacent to your rear tires. The blind spot can also extend into multiple lanes on either side. That's especially true when people are merging into heavy traffic.

One of the differences between a mirror and a camera is that you have a different point of view if you are looking over your shoulder. You are not as likely to look left / right if the camera's view is displayed on the screen in front of you. Driving instructors (and the DMV too!) insist that you turn your head to look before changing lanes so that you can spot any car that is likely to be a problem.

As you turn your head to check the mirror and the area next to the car your line of vision is sweeping from straight ahead (zero degrees) all the way to at least 90 degrees and frequently much further. That stereo view of traffic is more likely to provide sufficient depth perception to spot a fast moving car moving from lane to lane.

Of course, the camera and mirror both have the same drawback as the the human eye when it comes to glare. If the rising (or setting ) sun is within your line of sight you might find it hard to see anything in your blind spot. Sonar and Radar are good supplements since they can detect approaching traffic regardless of visual impediments.

So, in my experience, the RADAR + SONAR + mirror design may work better if your car has a design that creates large blind spots due to badly placed pillars or other obstructions.

A backup camera provides a different advantage. Once it displays a high definition picture on your dashboard screen you can take your time to analyze the scene and use the graphics on the screen to determine how close you are to obstacles.