[dvratil]

I sometimes wonder how these systems are being tested on the road and whether there's any feedback from the test drivers, or what kind of morons are there saying "this is completely fine, exactly like intended" when they read the feedback...

My car has adaptive cruise control and will automatically adjust speed based on speed limit signs. I was on a highway at 130km/h and the car read a 60km/h speed limit sign that was on an exit shoulder (already separated by a concrete barrier from the highway, so technically a different road altogether) and started breaking really fast - I was pretty close from getting tailgated by the driver behind me, who did not (rightfully) expect me to suddenly start breaking with nothing in front of me. Luckily this can be permanently turned off, so I can continue using cruise control without being afraid of every single speed limit sign.

Recently I had rented a Skoda Karoq (very new one, probably 2024/2025) which adjusted the cruise control speed not even based on signs, but probably based on data from built-in maps? I don't know - but it would randomly decide that I entered a 20km/h zone while driving on a 90km/h road. And this couldn't be turned off. So I just turned off cruise control completely, because wtf, how can anyone think this is improving road safety?

Edit: typo

[randerson]

My car (from VW Group) came with Active Lane Keep. It detects when you're drifting out of your lane and steers you back into it. Sounds great in theory.

Except that in the US, if you're cruising in the right lane then every time there's an exit it will actively steer you towards the concrete median between the lane and the exit. I don't understand how this feature was signed off on. The risks outweigh the benefits, in my opinion.

[mrbombastic]

Was driving in Lapland with a car like this, snow and ice everywhere on the road except in 2 narrow strips of pavement previous drivers had driven over, naturally it was not always in the exact area of lane that lane assist wanted me and I felt it was actively trying to kill me. Was able to disable but turned back on every time you stopped and started engine and I am forgetful.

[laughing_man]

I will never buy a car with that feature unless I can turn it off. I don't need the be fighting my car if I need to swerve in an emergency situation.

[magicalhippo]

In my car, Renault Megane e-Tech, there's even a physical button to toggle that feature.

Though I've rarely had it misbehave so I keep it on. If I lived somewhere with lots of narrow winding roads however, I'd probably reach for that button.

[ddalex]

I give it 6 years for not being able to disable the "safety" feature for all the cars in EU.

[port11]

If you swerve hard enough, the car lets you. I agree the system can be infuriating, but in a long highway ride I found it useful. In the city it’s usually off, I think there’s a speed factor to it.

(I disagree with many modern car systems and think they make for worse drivers, but keeping you on-lane at high speeds is not a bad thing.)

[psadauskas]

I rented a car a couple years ago, I think a Jeep of some sort (I didn't pick it), that had this feature. When driving on the highway, if there's a car in the lane next to me, I tend to move over to the other side of my lane to give more room, especially around curves. This car had lane-keeping, and would fight with me for the steering wheel, and force me uncomfortably close to the other cars, which is particularly infuriating when you're driving an unfamiliar car in an unfamiliar environment in heavy traffic at 70mph.

It only took about 5 minutes of that before I exited and looked up how to disable it, and it has to be disabled in the menus every time you start the car, there's no way to have it be permanent.

Now whenever I rent a car, I refuse to be given anything from Chrysler or VW.

[doubled112]

My Toyota has a button to _enable_ lane keeping. This is how it should be.

[jawilson2]

My Land Rover Defender has this as well.

[zwckl]

I drive a Volkswagen ID3 and it has the same issue. It's baffling. There are certain roads that trip it up for me and make it slam on the brakes: the A2 in Greenwich (a 50mph road in London UK) it'll suddenly think it's now 30mph, and on the M6 Northbound (70mph road in Birmingham, UK) it drops to 50mph. As far as I can see, there are no signs anywhere that the camera can misread.

On one occasion it thought the limit had changed to 100mph, which isn't even a defined speed limit in the UK.

[11mariom]

Glad I have slightly older car where 'adaptive cruise control' means keeping distance from car in front of me. Nothing more.

Sometimes I watch some reviews of newer cars, and numbers of beeping, comms on central screen, etc is just… overwhelming me. Watching video. Cannot imagine driving in that conditions.

[Tade0]

I'm happy I wasn't able to activate cruise control in the Karoq that I rented some time ago. VAG interfaces were always confusing to me and this behaviour would be more so.

I see signs recognized like that all the time, so use satnav as my reference. Unfortunately if it's not up to date (mine hasn't been for years now), it will suggest speeds which have nothing to do with reality.

[silon42]

I wonder if I should install a popup 30 sign on a rear window for tailgaters in the future.

[psd1]

Good thinking, but try a mirror. The majority of primate species don't recognise their own reflection, and the threat signals they display make them back off.

[yomismoaqui]

But then you have the problem of cleaning the feces from that mirror.

[MaxikCZ]

I hate it here. Please dont change.

[Tade0]

I'm curious as well, but I'm afraid they don't use such systems due to how they also keep distance as well as speed.

[karlosvomacka]

i have a bmw that read the road signs and then it prompts you if you'd like to readjust your adaptive cruise control to the new speed. Much better system than in VW cars.

[llamajams]

Well; Feature X is about to be released and the industry just invented feature Y and its all the rage and if its not in the pipeline the shareholders and the critiques get mad. So, The boffins decide that the company needs to get on it ASAP and cannibalize feature X team to make feature Y team and the "best" need to get on that team otherwise their career suffers. So the unwilling/incapable are left to sort out the kinks. They are divided into two camps which play a 0 sum game to get feature X released. Losing is bad for the losers, so you either resign t being an asshole for the benefit of the product or you try to not get your teammates fired at the detriment of the product. Maybe you try both and see. Either way youre resource starved and dammned either way. Maybe noone cares if you caught a bug before release. Maybe the guys that catch the bugs at the end of the line get praise and attention. Maybe everyone just gets mad that youre holding up the release, cuz the boffins wanted it done yesterday. After a while youre in a meeting debating whether an issue is not an issue and after an hour everyone has somewhere to be and one camp insists that if you hold it just so its not really an issue, and some think that this is a very rare edge case and would never happen IRL. one guy thinks this isnt a bug at all the user just has bad expectations. Others are tired of having to speak up and just wanna get on with their day because there might be a feature Z team and even though you got passed up for Y , youre actually a really god fit for Z s you better shut up if you wanna leave this mess. The guy who would have stopped this train rage quit 6 months ago. Finally everyone just calls it a non-issue and full send. Six months after the release there is an issue and now the regulators are coming, and you feel very vindicated that this was an issue but you didnt speak up , but secretly told Gary at lunch that this is gonna come back. Gary was in the meeting with the VP and the regulator ad made an off hand comment to the VP that you actually spotted this way back. And now the VP is mad that this issue could have been stopped, and now they think youre a pansy for staying mum , in fact this is unethical behavior and so youre off Z team and back to X. So you figure you never wanna be in this mess gain and switch to a diff org/company/ rage quit.

Rinse. Repeat.

[pontussw]

It’s an important piece of a test drive before you buy a car for sure

FWIW Toyota implements these features perfectly. The speed warning is just a little color icon on the dashboard, the lane assist works well and doesn’t ever do anything unexpected. The auto-brake systems work incredibly well and have helped me several times when people blow through yield signs, yet never had a false positive.

If regulations don’t force the company to build a compliant vehicle that doesn’t suck, then we need to leave all the cars with poorly implemented systems unsold

[quietsegfault]

I have a Korean SUV in the US, and I am rarely bothered by the attention alert. When I am, I’m very clearly not paying attention, and reminded gently to stop being a fool and pay attention! I like the implementation in my vehicle.