Grandmothely car almost killed us

Most new cars have the auto lane assist feature or lane center assist feature that will automatically keep you between the lines unless you use a turn signal. The car was doing what it's supposed to do, but should still allow you to overpower it when needed. It's interesting that you struggled with it. Scary too, because no one wants to be in that situation.

 

Given the "it seemed I was 45 degrees askew" (travelling down a highway lane at 75mph!), and "almost killed us" I think we can take the characterisation of the "struggle" as bit hyperbolic too.

I've certainly had the car do "get back into lane" nudges, but it's there's no way it puts up any sort of serious fight if you object. But I can imagine it doing a few repeated nudges if you're brushing along an edge it wants to avoid.

You could also hyperbolically claim the car saved OP's life by stopping him steering sharply into the barrier - it's not clear how "turning sharply to avoid the truck" makes sense if there was a barrier "restricting" the "option to move out of the lane". So the remaining option was just to squeeze left a little bit inside the lane - which should be a small steering manoeuvre at 75mph.

The car made sure he was travelling alongside the barrier, not actually hitting it.

I can also imagine the car is not so phased by a truck as a human - I think humans tend to be more wary of trucks than walls, understandably given the potential extra unpredictability, but the car's radar + camera sensors probably balanced the available space during the truck+barrier squeeze more evenly, thus preferring to be closer to the truck and further from the barrier than a human might.

Whenever I've used any of the auto-steer stuff, you can see that the car does make some allowance for vehicles in other lanes - it's certainly aware of the - but it certainly tends to deviate less from lanes due to them than I would be inclined to.

 

Not sure “grandmothely” (sic) is the optimum adjective.

 

You've posted in the gen5 board, but your bio states that you have a gen4?
The gen5 lane keep assist is much improved from the gen4 - so I've been told. I've turned mine OFF after a couple of weeks of owning mine. Didn't like it bouncing me between the left and right lines of the lane. Steering wheel nudges can be easily overpowered, but I'm sure the rattling steering wheel didn't help in that high pressure situation. I've driven long enough that I DO NOT need or want these systems second guessing me!
I still get the occasional red BRAKE screen when approaching a car too fast as they're clearing the lane or jumping into my lane. Can't turn that nag OFF, but I'm sure insurance companies would raise my rates every-time they see that triggered.

YMMV

 

Pilot-involved oscillation is a real thing, very scary, and not always recoverable. I've experienced it twice, once on a bicycle and once in an SUV—an old one before any kind of lane-keeping or stability-control features.

I haven't experienced it (yet) in a vehicle with those newer features. They probably make it less likely that you'll get into an oscillation through some small misjudgment in normal driving circumstances. On the other hand, in some situation where you had to give a sharp-enough input for an oscillation to start, it's probably still hard to recover from. Not that the new features are what's making it hard, but they probably change the exact way that it's hard.

 

Kool story...

Just because a car comes with a plethera of features doesn't mean you have to use them.
I turned that one off the first week with a few others

 

i don't drive above the speed limit, or in the left lane, so i can't really comment intelligently. (not that that has ever stopped me before)
i'm just glad you weren't hurt.

 

I had a close call of my own today.
I have gotten too used to the driving assist features, and I was fiddling with a setting on my phone.
When I looked up, I was shooting through a stop sign. Good thing there was no traffic coming.
I wish there was a setting to automatically stop at stop signs. Not that it would make me pay more attention.

 

I don't believe that the gen5 automatically applies the brakes; unless your cruise control is active and set. That doesn't stop at stop signs either!! That's the reason LEO write tickets for using cell phones while driving (not hands-free).....

 

I admit my error and I acknowledge my lack of attention, and I don't blame the car, but I talked about this before; the driving assist features do make it easier not to pay attention, as a driver should. This is not a flaw; it's a new paradigm. At least until we achieve full driving autonomy.

 

Can't claim quite the same experience, but I'll just say that I've made it a habit to disengage the cruise control and/or driver assist stuff at the first sign of "a situation."

And on Connecticut highways those happen fairly often.

I was working in the greater Bridgeport area all last week, in a rental car. CT traffic is dense enough and its drivers are aggressive enough to cause situations every few minutes. I still like cruise control, but I recognize that I can only trust it so far- so I always work to memorize the "pause" or "cancel" button for instant response. I'm not perfect either, but it's been helping.

 

Also, the same brake switch that works the brake lights does serve as an immediate cruise cancel if you forget to cancel with the stalk.

There's another difference: if you cancel with the stalk and then brake, the brake ECU considers that normal braking (unless you hit the pedal so fast the stroke sensor reading meets the 'urgent braking' threshold).

If you cancel cruise by use of the brake, that's automatically classified as urgent. The ECU takes a bias toward four-wheel friction braking immediately so it can have ABS on tap if needed. (I learned this about my gen 3 anyway; not sure about possible generation differences.)

For that reason, I always try to cancel cruise first before I brake for any non-urgent reason (better regen that way), but in a 'situation', I'm more likely to let the pedal switch do it for me.

 

Worth remembering that canceling cruise doesn't necessarily cancel steering assist systems. I've been in a few cars where they are coupled, but in most they are not.

Because I rent so many cars for work, I get to learn a new control system every week or three.

 

I use cruise control a lot, but not in construction zones or heavy traffic. This prevents me from getting speeding tickets. I've noticed over the years that drivers now-a-days seems to treat driving rules more as suggestions than rules. For example, solid white line means no lane changes - routinely ignored. Usually used to shift traffic left or right around a multi-lane construction obstetrical. Kinda like driving overseas.

Bottom line; these cars are NOT autonomous drive; If your in the drivers seat - It's your responsibility!

I've gotten used to a quick tap of the brake peddle to kill the cruise; since my hand usually isn't near the CC stalk. Unfortunately, I think that also kills my previously CC settings; so I have to reset it. It took me a long-time to start trusting the adaptive cruise control technology; gotta remember that it's still NOT on all cars - especially rentals.

YMMV

 

i agree about safety features making some drivers less aware of their situation.
when i got my bolt, i thought the one pedal driving was fantastic. but i started to notice that my brake reaction time was slowing

 

Ditto with blind spot detection; People just don't LOOK anymore before changing lanes nor signal

 

You might be surprised how popular it has become just in the past two years.

It's in base trim Kias and Hyundais. It's in the little Nissan Sentra.

In fact it might be easier to list the ones that don't have it. It's notably absent from the 2025 Chevy Malibu, but those are starting to disappear from rental fleets anyway.

 

it's on our 2024 hycam, but tss 2.5 does not work well. neither does the ping pong lane assist