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Main Section => Welcome to our virtual Pub Meeting ... => Topic started by: Grandadrob on January 09, 2021, 05:36:15 PM
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Just read a piece which said that some cars with anti collision equipment will do an emergency stop if passing over a cattle grid.... Well it made me smile anyway !
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I once had an interesting problem with a tractor fitted with automatic draft control whereby a scanner scanned to terrain and automatically adjusted the depth of the plough accordingly to prevent wheel slip and drag. It was a new demonstrator. The demo driver started his first cut and happened to go over a puddle. The computer saw that as a major incident and lifted the plough so quickly that it put part of it through the cab back window... Oh how we laughed...
Hopefully anybody going over a cattle grid will be doing it slowly, so would hope that under a certain speed such features don't activate. If they do, presumably the emergency stop wouldn't be too traumatic.
So much for modern technology...
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Yes indeed. I've never had the anti collision go off over a cattle grid, but it scared the life out of me the first time it went off whilst approaching a middle lane cruiser. It's now switched off along with EVERYTHING else.
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There was briefly a Volvo at work.
Two people were out in it, and I think, they tried to squeeze it through a gap, the car thought there was going to be an impact, and nearly strangled them by tightening up the seatbelts... :-X
...Oh how I laughed. :whistle
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The city stop on my car only works at sub 30 mph and it works on recognising number plates - not sure if it works on the old B&W plates and I'm not prepared to test it out.
Been over cattle grids with no probs.
IIRC Jeremy Clarkson of Top Gear fame drove a car with "collision tech" at a hedge, at speed and it didn't stop :stars
...and then I guess it depends what make of car as I suspect there's no international spec for these - yet.
:RHD
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The city stop on my car only works at sub 30 mph and it works on recognising number plates - not sure if it works on the old B&W plates and I'm not prepared to test it out.
Been over cattle grids with no probs.
IIRC Jeremy Clarkson of Top Gear fame drove a car with "collision tech" at a hedge, at speed and it didn't stop :stars
...and then I guess it depends what make of car as I suspect there's no international spec for these - yet.
:RHD
The reason for that is that most car manufacturers have a specific software setting which knows when Jeremy Clarkson is driving their cars and automatically turns off all life saving features. Unfortunately nobody has quite succeeded in their dastardly plan.
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This just gives me another reason to hate modern cars even more :shakeinghead
It's bad enough already with many drivers seeming to believe they are indestructible cocooned within their moulded blob that does everything except drive itself.... :thud
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My previous car was a BMW X3 and it was fitted with anti collision, several times ( no fool like an old fool) I tried accelerating towards the car in front. Every time I chickened out and hit the brakes before the car had a chance😀
My present car -Audi Q3 - also has it. The system has an annoying habit of squawking at you when you pass a car in front which has just gone round a corner. However, re the cattle grids, our farm track has several cattle grids one of which is in a hollow. If I approach it at a anything over a few mph, the anti collision slams on the rakes and tightens, I mean really tightens, the seat belt. I think it is a result of the dip in the track which the car senses the ground as being a close object and acts accordingly, rather than the metal if the cattle grid as it doesn't happen with the other two. First time it happened scared the ??? out if me, still catches me out occasionally.
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Back in those far off days when we used to be able to go anywhere, I travelled on business a fair amount. Corporate policy does not allow use of your own car so when the pool cars ran out I would get a hire car. The pool cars are Skoda Octavias and the latest set have lane adjustment which tries to pull you back in lane when you are pulling off a dual carriageway onto a slip road. It is annoying enough that I turn it off when I remember to. The single most dangerous one though was a Kia Sportage. Some of the roads between work and home do not have a white line up the middle and it was determined to find something to call the middle of the road, usually the kerb or the hedge on one side, resulting in alarms continuously sounding as it tried to drag me into the hedge on the opposite side. I fought it all the way to the school to pick up the children and it is the only car I have had where I then had to get out the handbook and figure out how to turn everything off. It was still horrible and gutless, but at least it was no longer actively trying to kill me!
Alec
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..... and they think driverless cars is the way to go :stars
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A Toyota Prius was the only car where I needed the instruction book to start it. A work pool car. Then I found a laminated sheet with a set of instructions.
No other car in my experience needed such things.
And as for the driving experience ... It handled like a mattress at sea. By using it frugally I got 50mpg out of it. But my own car ( a For diesel) got 56mpg with ordinary driving.
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So, if it works on cattle grids, and cars in front, are we saying it reacts to metal objects. Can someone try ramming a plastic car and see if it works then, just for my satisfaction. :stars
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I hired a huge 4x4 in America that had that thing that tries to steer you back into your lane. Very weird feeling until I worked out what it was doing. Like you were trying to steer out of tramlines.
On empty roads I used it as a self driving mode where it would travel gently bumping off the left and right white lines.
Only snag was my wife would freak out and shout at me to hold the wheel. It did make you feel a bit seasick.
:cheers
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Kick the bumper hard enough on some cars, and the doors unlock.....
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Isn't the apparently insuperable problem with driverless cars that they (quite rightly) are programmed to avoid pedestrians. All well and good except that any joker can stop the thing by simply stepping into the road.
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Kids are going to love testing it out on Trick or Treat night, or in fact every day of the year :thud
And when they get hit (or next of kin) they will go the compo route ... where's there blame there's a claim :shakeinghead
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The technology didnt work on the merc that skidded into our garden wall on Friday morning
Peter
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Having watched a friend trying to reverse his brand new merc down my slightly overgrown driveway, I can confirm the auto-stop thing is a real problem. Every protruding bit of foliage the car detected made it slam the brakes on, even at very slow speeds reversing.
The computer has full control over steering, brakes, (automatic) gears and accelerator - he's only in control when the merc think it's appropriate.
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Our new Honda has it, worse when your using cruise control. Driving down the M
way at 70 start to approach a 50 limit, long before the 50 mph zone starts with my foot off the gas and slowing down the brakes came on very hard and we nearly had a rear end accident. Same if being over taken by a car that's considered too close. Go round a corner too fast and the seat belt pre tensioners apply. Not a good up grade. It was written off not long after we were hit in the near side by a Polish Lorry twice. All the air bags and seat belts did there jobs, I got away with a badly bruised shoulder. I was sat in the passenger seat, wife was driving and she was unhurt and unmarked.
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My neighbour had his New Merc written off when he braked hard when a deer ran out in front of him. The emergency brake assist intervened and slammed on all the brakes as hard as can be , but, the ABS only worked on one side of the car so the other side locked up and the car veered across the road and through a hedge into a field . Fortunately no other traffic and no trees. He had been complaining to me previously about the brakes didn't seem right but had put off taking it back as he was busy. Mercedes had the car back and replaced it with a new one.
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New Merc (works car not mine) on the M42, tried to move out of the way to let an ambulance pass by going in close to central reservation, was doing about 20-25mph in heavy traffic, it did an emergency stop with over a foot of clearance to the barrier - bonkers ! (the ambulance crew must of thought I was a right moron)
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Actually, I don't mind most of the "driving aids" in our modern car.
Yes, they can be a bit of a pain with their over-protective bonging and bleeping, but it's not so constant as to be really annoying. The "blind spot" monitoring IS useful, as is the reversing camera coupled with the blind spot bleeping, as we have to reverse out onto a busy road. A road that many drivers exceed the speed limit on.
The lane departure warning we find less useful, but again, it's not too intrusive. A little warning diagram flashes up first, then a faint vibration in the steering if you've ignored the warning, and finally the steering would pull you into line, though we've never had that happen in the 18 months we've had the car.
The distance control radar, coupled with cruise control, can be (and is) a boon on a long, boring, busy motorway journey, but of course you still remain fully alert if you've any sense. That anti collision tech, again, is not intrusive or annoying, and has not caused the slightest problem whilst we've had the car - except when the sensor got covered with dead insects on a long drive on a hot summer's day. Then it stopped working until I cleaned the windscreen.
I find all the tech in the car, and there's loads more of it, a very entertaining (and slightly amusing) comparison to driving the Series II. I expect the next stage will be built-in on-board recording cameras front and rear, but I can't see completely driverless cars ever being a success on our currently too crowded roads.....
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I've only experienced most of these driving aids on the occasional hire car but I do quite like the lane assist. It's only of any use on motorways but coupled with an adaptive cruise control it makes a long drive a lot less tiring. Once you leave the motorway, just turn it off. For those that complain about it fighting against you trying to change lanes, I've found usually that the system is deactivated with the indicators coming on...
As for automatic breaking, a girlfriend had a car with it and in 3 years I only had the brakes slam on once. I felt at the time that it had over reacted since I was already braking but since it was such a rare occurrence I never bothered to figure out how the system worked and what parameters were necessary for the car to take over.
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Crumbly65 - sounds like you’ve got a recent Volvo.... We’ve recently changed from an X3 beemer to a Volvo XC40 and despite a long history of driving vehicles such as Caterham 7s etc. without any assistance (no brake servo even...), I quite like the Volvo toys...
The radar cruise is the best one - good for more open roads as the braking can be a bit intrusive around town. It’s quite ‘fun’ to hold your nerves and let the Volvo brake you to a complete stop - impressively smooth. Not something I plan to do further, but now I know how good it can be...
The ‘lane assist’ (camera-driven steering on m-ways etc.) is also quite nice in smooth flowing roads. It will work on more minor single lane roads but the steering gets a bit 50p-piece ‘bitey’. I can see myself using it on long m-way journeys when these become possible again...
Lane departure isn’t hopeless - but I’ve set it to just warn rather than intervene as it can get a bit shirty if you clip an apex on a right hand bend, for instance.
Self parking is a bit scary in my experience so far - it can get alarmingly close to other vehicles... mind you, so can I when I try manually!
We’ve had two collision avoidance interventions that I’m not so keen on. One was supposedly a lemming pedestrian in a town setting - but I think it was a false alarm caused by an unusual bend and hill bordered by pavement. The second was when approaching a car parked at an angle into a lay-by - partly protruding into the road. It wasn’t an impediment but I can see it was worth noting. In both cases there was just an alarm boing and a bit of mild assistance through the steering that immediately ceased when the threat had passed (or the car recognised continued driver input).
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Hopefully anybody going over a cattle grid will be doing it slowly,
Not on a proper one on a main road. It's never occured to me to slow down.
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Well it goes like this...
If you are around with other vehicles going over the grid at speed, you can copy/follow.
If it's a grid that your are not familiar with, then caution is the word.
If it's a grid in your locale and you are familiar with it then maybe OK at speed, but I personally would ease off a bit - you never know.
:RHD
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Crumbly65 - sounds like you’ve got a recent Volvo.... We’ve recently changed from an X3 beemer to a Volvo XC40 and despite a long history of driving vehicles such as Caterham 7s etc. without any assistance (no brake servo even...), I quite like the Volvo toys...
The radar cruise is the best one - good for more open roads as the braking can be a bit intrusive around town. It’s quite ‘fun’ to hold your nerves and let the Volvo brake you to a complete stop - impressively smooth. Not something I plan to do further, but now I know how good it can be...
The ‘lane assist’ (camera-driven steering on m-ways etc.) is also quite nice in smooth flowing roads. It will work on more minor single lane roads but the steering gets a bit 50p-piece ‘bitey’. I can see myself using it on long m-way journeys when these become possible again...
Lane departure isn’t hopeless - but I’ve set it to just warn rather than intervene as it can get a bit shirty if you clip an apex on a right hand bend, for instance.
Self parking is a bit scary in my experience so far - it can get alarmingly close to other vehicles... mind you, so can I when I try manually!
We’ve had two collision avoidance interventions that I’m not so keen on. One was supposedly a lemming pedestrian in a town setting - but I think it was a false alarm caused by an unusual bend and hill bordered by pavement. The second was when approaching a car parked at an angle into a lay-by - partly protruding into the road. It wasn’t an impediment but I can see it was worth noting. In both cases there was just an alarm boing and a bit of mild assistance through the steering that immediately ceased when the threat had passed (or the car recognised continued driver input).
Actually, We've a Suzuki Vitara! It was relatively cheap given the equipment levels, it's our 2nd one (the previous one being super reliable, not even a bulb went in the 40 months ownership), and it's got a reasonably good 4wd option with Mud & Snow mode. SWMBO wants a Volvo next, but as she"s looking to retire sometime in 2021, the cost may be prohibitive.....
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One of our vehicles has auto park......bit of a party trick but have only used it to show off....I can park much quicker
Test drove an XC40...Volvo.....absolutely love the adaptive cruise....can see that it would be perfect do big journeys in France.....as mentioned above it will brake down to zero miles an hour....'what an amazing modern world we live in'
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One thing I have found some modern cars don't like, is trying to brake and accelerate at the same time . There was chap on the Discovery 3 forum complaining he couldn't reverse his caravan up a steep drive.
The car was an auto and he was holding the rig on the slope with the footbrake on with his left foot, park brake off and trying to rev the engine to take up the drive as he then released the foot brake. . It wouldn't allow him to open the throttle. He was advised to stop holding it on the footbrake, and hold in on the park brake. Then just open the throttle, the park brake would auto release and away it would go.
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My car has supposed anti collision tech. I've not tested it. I wondered what all the noise was and panels flashing red when i got to close to a hedge, when i first bought it. I was a good foot away. I thought about trying the self park but it freaked me once the steering wheel started moving. So i cancelled it within seconds. I've not tried since.
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One thing I have found some modern cars don't like, is trying to brake and accelerate at the same time
I don’t tend to left-foot brake road cars but use overlap extensively in the sim racing environment and have used it in certain situations on the road in my Caterham and Westfield kit-cars. Used with care, it can help tighten the line mid corner through weight transfer. I don’t have a problem modulating the braking with the left foot, but you do need to have a plan if a gear change becomes necessary!
Received wisdom is that (some?) VW-family vehicles really don’t (or didn’t) like brake/throttle overlap and would go into a limp-home mode if you tried it as they assume something is wrong...
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So here's the thing.
Apart from all this 'tech' supposedly making things safer - but by the sound of it scaring the living daylight out of some - I assume there is the abilty it to turn it all off (probably not in one hit though?)?
So - again one assumes that somewhere within the plethora of ECUs/computers in this modern vehicle which is/are able to note the settings and are readable - what do/will your insurer make of it if you have a shunt and the 'safety' feature(s) have been disabled?
As you can tell our modern car which is now 8 years old fortunately has none of this. Thank goodness I am still able to stay alert enough not to wander across lanes, get too close to the car in front, gauge my distance from hedges etc otherwise there would be no telling of what might happen :agh
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My 10 year old van cuts the throttle if you touch the brake. I nearly went through the windscreen once when I gently left foot braked to see if it would cure a squeaky brake. It also went nuts when I was coming down a long downhill on a motorway and took it out of gear to coast down. Lots of dash warning lights were flashing and it said to check engine. Had to pull over to turn it off and on again.
My boy, when he was little, used like it when we would turn the land rover engine off and coast down long empty hills. He called it Stealth Mode. :Tdi. :-X
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My new SEAT Ateca has all these fancy things and I've not had any problems with unnecessary brake applications or the car seeing ghosts in the road, I do keep the front senser clean though and set for 'medium' as recommended on the SEAT forum. I regard myself as a safe calm driver and only once has the 'tech' had to save me. Doing about 25mph on an urban road the other half asked if I needed diesel and I looked down at the fuel gauge just as the clown in the white van decided he was turning sharp left with no warning, the Ateca sensed this idiot and made a full brake application with the accompanying flashing dash warning and bleepings, I didn't have to do anything! Fortunately no-one was behind to run into us. So the fancy tech does work but, I've driven for over forty years without it and never ran into the back of someone although maybe the standard of driving these days is so bad that the insurance companies welcome all these 'driver aids'. :RHD
Dave.
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I remember my the ABS on my Citroen BX DTR Turbo estate nearly making me hit a car door that was opened immediately in front of me when I was travelling at 5 or 10MPH and expected the thing to more or less stop dead with a chirp from the tyres - and much the same thing with a cat that shot out into the road. It was also fun in snow when it wouldn't allow a wall of snow to build up in front of the tyres and made the car carry on.
I've got it on my current Focus 1.8 estate - and although its apparently working I've never noticed it in action.
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One thing I have found some modern cars don't like, is trying to brake and accelerate at the same time .
One thing I have done a couple of times on first hopping into an automatic is try left foot braking. No intentionally, I just subconsciously felt my left foot should be doing something so it automatically went for the brake. The result tends to be a very juddery experience in the carpark until I snap out of it and use the stop and go pedals as intended. I'd always the cars reluctance to have both pedals used at once was due to a lack of finesse in a lead left foot too used to operating a clutch but I might have to experiment a bit more next time I rent...