My car needs some A.I.

My commute involves mostly freeway, but some 2 lane back roads. I typically enable cruise while on the freeway, but I never use LTA as I dislike hands free. Once I get on 2 lane back roads, I disable cruise and drive "normally". This is when the car will occasionally misunderstand the lane/road edges and try to pull me into harms way. I haven't noticed it happening with snow patches yet (eek!!), but it will happen over crests in the road or sections that don't have edge lines.

I like the safety features for the freeway, but it is quite unnerving on back roads when the car tries to suicide. Digging through the menus on exit ramps to reconfigure the car each day isn't practical. Maybe there's a quicker way and I need to spend more quality time with the manual.

 

And that latitude exists in whether you use the driver aid systems or leave them on. True self driving systems that could take that away aren't going to happen in the near future.

 

There`s no freedom no more!

As I said - nothing new...

 

You mean to actually follow the instructions in the owner's manual? (yes, that's sarcasm)

It seems to me you want a vehicle that could only be designed at Hogwarts or Vulcan. You're asking for/expecting things that are not possible given current consumer-level technology*. The lane keeping system needs to see the lines on the road in order to work. So if the lines are obscured, TURN THE DAMN THING OFF! It's not rocket science here. You live in Canada; you had to know the lane keeping system wasn't likely to work once the road started getting covered with ice or snow. It's bloody obvious. If you didn't, that's on you, not Toyota.


*I'm sure the military has advanced, sub-millimeter wave radar technology that could "see" through any snow or ice, but I don't think any of us are interested in a multi-million dollar price tag on our otherwise $30k-$40k cars.

 

Perhaps another viewpoint will help the conversation. My other primary car is a 22 Civic. It tended to temporarily auto-disable road departure/lane keeping when it's "confidence" in the sensor inputs was low. If the road was covered, fog, or lines were obscured, the system would disable and the icon on the HUD would change color to let the driver know the change in status. Once conditions improved, the system would auto-enable. I wouldn't call it AI, but it does seem "smarter" than veering into harms way due to bad data.

I haven't driven my Prius long enough to know how it responses in a similar scenario. I'm sure there's some corner of the manual that discusses the topic obliquely that I haven't found yet.

 

That describes to me basically exactly what the Prius does, except it doesn't auto re-enable, it stays off.

I don't quite know where the "veering" behaviour described above is coming from, unless the driver is ignoring the fact the system has shut off.

 

The "veering" comes from it misinterpreting the edge of a tar & chip back road that doesn't have painted edge lines. I cannot determine if it's seeing tar streaks through the gravel and suddenly thinks I'm leaving the road or what. The end result is it actively tries to nudge me into oncoming traffic/ditch rather than auto-disabling.

I've only had the car for a week and perhaps there is a learning curve, but this is just what I've noticed on my daily drive. I would disable that feature completely in the menus, but 3/4 of my commute is on the freeway where that feature would be handy. Maybe there is a "sensitivity" adjustment I can make that would help? I need to do more reading...

 

There's a whole button dedicated to enabling/disabling LTA. Top right on the steering wheel.

 

I believe LTA is off (I never drive hands free). However, road/lane departure still seems to be on unless I'm missing something. I'll fiddle with it the next time I'm out.

 

Right, yes, lane departure alert probably defaults to on whenever the car starts. (Despite the manual advising you to turn it off in winter conditions).

But I've never seen it try to take override action unless there are clear lines myself. As far as I can tell lack of lines means refusal to do Lane Tracing Assist, and no attempt to do Lane Departure Alerts. I think the OP here has always been talking about LTA problems.

Are you getting warning lights and wheel vibration or beeps (depending on setting)? That should precede any actual LDA steering action.

The final bit of intelligence is the Proactive Driving Assist, which can provide some steering input, but that shouldn't actually fight you at any point, more just sort of encourage you when it thinks you're doing the right thing.

 

Interesting: On my 2022 LTA will disengage like yours, but then re-engages when conditions improve. It beeps when it disengages (right now I can't remember it it beeps again when re-engaging), so there are times it can be rather annoying with the conditions of Illinois roads!

 

Mmm, my memory might be faulty on the re-enabling point. Not used it that much, and it's been quite a while since there have been non-snow-covered roads here, so the button's been off for months.

 

If only I could have a GoPro strapped to my nose while I drive. I really need to take some pics of the MID so I can accurately describe what I see vs what the car does. Sorry to get the thread off topic...

As a side note, I do have PDA off, so that shouldn't be involved.

 

These systems can confuse things for lines. My Subaru once thought power line shadows were lines. It should be easy to override the system's steering inputs when this occurs though. Once that is down the nudging should stop until it can reacquire the line.

There is two different systems; one that just nudges when too close to the line all the time, and one that actively centers the car in the lane when used with cruise control. Might be possible to turn off the first, and still use the second on highways.

 

You can adjust the strength of the "nudges" and I am pretty sure you can even turn them off in the settings. I didn't like the default strength when I got the car as it was set to the middle, so I put it lower.

So far, outside of a heavy snow, the car hasn't been confused on any nudges for me. When there was a lot of snow on a side road this morning, everything was white, and the car just didn't activate the lane tracing at all.