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by noonshine 3710 days ago
I have adaptive cruise control in my Subaru Legacy and I have often wondered what will happen when more people have ACC. Or even if I were following another car exactly like mine - would the lag time grow exponentially with more intense stop/go or would it even out? Or does it depend on how well the car implements it?
3 comments

The adaptive cruise control in my Ford turns itself off if the speed is low enough-- which on Seattle-area freeways happens pretty often. So I stopped trying to use it.
The Subaru one stays on until you come to a complete stop. Even then, it's still "on" in a way, since it'll hold the brakes, but you have to flick up on the cruise control switch to get the car to start moving again. It'll also notify you if the car in front has started moving again and you haven't done anything (with or without ACC on). It's on my girlfriend's car, so I don't use it every day, but it has been nice the times I've driven it in traffic.
I used ACC on my mom's hybrid Accord recently and it was an aweful experience. It was like regular cruise control, but broken. Lagging start, unnecessary distances, slow responses. That and the out of lane beep whenever I passed a car (staying in the same lane but getting to the edge of the lane for increased margin of error) was really annoying. If this is the future of assisted driving, just give me fully automated driving.
There was an Acura ad recently which said the car would change your route if it knew there was a jam ahead.

I thought 'what happens if the ad is so successful everyone buys that Acura?'

Then people complain about rising traffic through their neighborhoods: http://www.cnbc.com/2014/12/11/la-residents-complain-about-w...