I don't drive much at night. I've done more of it in the last two weeks than I have in the last two years.

So I'm on a mission and fumbling around in the dark trying to set the cruise control on the RAV4. Managed it after a couple of miscues, all is well.

Then I noticed the steering is REALLY funky. Like it's fighting me. I even stopped thinking I had a loose wheel or a bent rim or something. All good outside. Okay, maybe it was the wind.

Drive a little further and the car starts beeping at me and the steering wheel is DEFINITELY fighting me.

Long story short, I'd bumped the "lane departure" button on the steering wheel while fumbling with the cruise.

Scared the shit out of me for a second there...

OTOH, the voice control link to the phone works perfectly. I said "Call Pat" and it popped up two choices on the screen. Tapped the right one and Bob's Yer Uncle. Cool.

My Charger had a dash button that enabled you to turn on the backup camera. It was fun to watch people behind me in drive thrus and at traffic signals pick their nose, scratch, toke doobies and sing when they thought no one could see them.
Excellent use of tech!

I absolutely despise Toyotas current Lane Trace Assist version of lane departure.

This is coming from a Toyota certified collision tech. I calibrate the radar sensors and cameras after the collision work is done.

Lane departure systems started with just an audible warning when the camera would detect you drifting out of your lane. Then it went to using the electric steering system to gently nudge you back to try to keep you from fully crossing, sometimes with and audible beep and sometimes with a slight vibration of the steering wheel. I have no personal problem with either of those set-ups in vehicles and I like having it in my new Mazda CX-5.

Now Toyota in their infinite wisdom of what they think the driver needs, decided to take it a step further and came out with Lane Trace Assist which tries to keep you centered in your lane and does not allow you to drift within your lane at all. It keeps correcting the steering in order to keep your vehicle centered in the lane. It feels like you are constantly fighting the steering because of that constant correction.

I actually almost got in an accident with a customers vehicle because of this new variant that Toyota implemented. After a calibration I always take the vehicle out for a test drive to make sure that the system that I calibrated is working properly. I had calibrated the front radar on a Camry and got on the highway to test the function. There was construction going on at the time that had concrete barriers placed on the right hand solid white line of the highway. When I got to that section I was in the right hand lane and was trying to ride closer to the center dotted line to give me more room between the car and the concrete barriers. Well that Lane Trace Assist didn't like that and was pushing me to the right toward the barriers. It made me feel like I was going ram into them and I had to fight it the whole way past that section which thankfully was only about 1500 feet.

After that happened I figured out what went on and ever since then if the customer has it activated I turn it off during my test drive and then turn it back on when I return, unless I calibrated the lane departure system, then I have to keep it on to check that it is functioning as designed.

Black Pepper, perhaps you can answer a couple of questions that occurred to me.

1. The auto dim feature on the headlights - is that controlled by the camera only or is the radar involved? I ask because it also works coming up behind someone which means it isn't activated only by oncoming headlights.

2. Radar, adaptive cruise control and collision avoidance - I don't use the cruise a lot as it's so hilly around here. Most often I set it and then turn it on and off with the cancel/resume buttons to take back manual control over hills. I know the radar determines following distance and will adjust the speed and apply braking when needed. If the cruise is enabled but temporarily cancelled I get a note on the display that the radar is "ready". My question is, will it still apply the brakes as part of collision avoidance?

I don't have a big issue with audible or tactile warnings (e.g., chimes or the "butt buzzer" in GM truck seats), but I draw the line at a car taking control from me.

quote:

Now Toyota in their infinite wisdom of what they think the driver needs, decided to take it a step further and came out with Lane Trace Assist which tries to keep you centered in your lane and does not allow you to drift within your lane at all. It keeps correcting the steering in order to keep your vehicle centered in the lane. It feels like you are constantly fighting the steering because of that constant correction.

Oh hell no. What if you need to suddenly dodge an object in the road? Is the system going to fight you and force you to hit it? Or will automatic braking kick in and make you the front end of a chain reaction?

The problem with this stuff is that it can't gauge the intent of the driver. I can see another potential problem with automatic braking. Sure, it might keep you from running over someone accidentally. But what if you're, say, surrounded by a mob and need to run over them? I think I'll hang on to my 2009 Corolla for a while longer … probably the rest of my life.

Just wait for the car manufactures start charging fees for some of these "smart" options... They use them as a selling point making you purchase factory standard options that you may or not really want but trust me in the very near future these options will be deleted and turned off electroncally and you will either pay-up to have option turned back on or learn to live without those options. ................. drill sgt.

PHPaul,

1. The camera and the front radar sensor share information between each other and work together. The camera will sense light intensity and dim the headlamps from strong lighting like oncoming headlamps, but uses the front radar to sense you coming up behind another vehicle and uses that to dim the lights.

2. The front radar sensor is always active as soon as you start the vehicle regardless of the cruise control being active or not. So the collision avoidance is active at all times while driving. The collision avoidance uses both the radar and camera and work together again.

What most people don't realize or understand is that the radar sensors on vehicles (front radar or blind spot) DO NOT detect every object in its range. They detect solid metallic objects and other various items that reflect radar waves in the millimeter wave range. They usually detect motorcycles, but there are times that they may not. Anything that absorbs radar waves will not be detected by the sensors. A cardboard box is a good example. Cardboard will absorb the radar waves and I actually use large pieces of cardboard to block other metallic items in the shop that are behind the metal target that I place to calibrate the sensors. So a cardboard box in the middle of the road will not be detected by the radar sensor, but vehicles with the newest camera technology may detect the box visually and apply the brakes.

Weather conditions also effect these safety systems. Frost or snow covering the cameras or radar sensor areas as well as mud, ice, heavy rain, etc can or will cause these systems to fail to read or they will shut down with a warning being displayed on the dash that the system is deactivated. They are not fool proof and never claim to be. There are warnings in every owners manual about their limitations and every driver is still responsible to be alert and paying attention.

Hope this helps.

drill sgt,

Tesla already does this. You buy subscriptions for features already built into the car, and they can turn them off anytime that they choose to.

I heard somewhere about a year ago that BMW was looking to do this as well.

Proximity sensors and backup cameras are useful, but they'd be needed less if you could see out the back of the car in the first place. And if a car is going to have a backup camera, make the display so it can be seen, not a three-inch square on the end of the mirror.

Black Pepper, that was some very useful info.

BP, that makes perfect sense. Thank you!

I have Toyota and Subaru. The Toyota nanny stuff always has been behind the Subaru nanny stuff. I’m sure other brands are better than both. I find the Toyota stuff not very good. I like most of the Subaru stuff with the exception of the lane assist. It’s awful in both and I turned it off in both. (2021 Subaru and 2019/20 RAV4 I forget which).

The blind spot, lane departure, and adaptive cruise are really nice IMO.

My Bronco Sport has that also. I tried it once and it drove me nuts within a couple of blocks.

It remains permanently off now.

Thank you, Paul, for bringing up the topic. And thank you Black Pepper for the great information on how the systems work.

Glad I could help.

Just to be clear, the way things work can vary between Manufacturers and how they implement the systems. Take Subaru for example, they don't have a front radar sensor. Their Eyesight system uses dual cameras behind the windshield for both lane departure and collision avoidance/cruise control.

The technology and advancements are rapidly changing. Some of the systems that the industry are working on for future deployment are even more sophisticated and sensitive. As usual, higher class vehicles get the most advanced systems and features and then they slowly filter down to the lower end, hence why new car prices continue to rapidly rise year after year.

I don't like lane departure warnings and steering wheel feedback. Sometimes when I'm going on a curve and it's safe, I go over the inner line.

I got a taste of it while test driving an Infiniti around 2007.

Ah, the lovely ADAS. I’ve avoided it so far on my vehicle purchases. It’s getting harder though and I want to buy my final 6MT performance/sports car to last me the rest of my life. Even on those that are left (very few, that are affordable), it’s getting really difficult to buy anything without ADAS on it. I just have zero interest in Hal9000 being on my car or truck. I don’t want or need automatic climate control or anything else. Just regular old cruise control. I’ve driven vehicles with lane keep assist, collision mitigation braking, and such, and got nothing but entirely frustrated with them. They should be a damn option, not standard. And they are enablers AFAIAC for phone addicts. When I drive, I’m not eating, looking at a phone, or fucking around. Eyes are forward at all times unless I’m checking mirrors or blind spots.

My truck, a 2019 model. Well the mfr. announced all the 2020’s would have ADAS standard. Even on the 2019’s the upper trims had all the nanny systems on them. On the mid trim and lower did not have Hal onboard. I wasn’t even planning on a buy right then and there so I sold my performance car to fund the deal. It was having issues under warranty and made me nervous so I rushed to get the truck while I still could. And since no Hal, I was able to modify it extensively with wireless carplay, full audio system, alarm, etc. When Hal is on it you are stuck using the OEM headunit for life and that drives me nuts as I like to change it. I don’t jack with the phone in the vehicle, ever, but I’m also done with cords, plugging shit in, etc. ADAS will ruin a passion for me, vehicles. I’m tired of the nanny state, cancel culture, safety spaces, influencers, and all the rest of the bullshit.

quote:

Originally posted by Prefontaine:

ADAS

Adas was king of Korriban and the Sith in a reign that lasted nearly three hundred years. He was large for his species, his skin was unusually charcoal-colored, and he was raised as a chosen being from his youth. Encasing himself in ebon armor, he wielded a massive battle-ax, and became a master of Sith magic. Circa 28,000 BBY, Adas united the disparate nations of Korriban in a series of bloody conflicts, eventually solidifying himself as the sole leader of his people.

V-Tail,

ADAS is an acronym that stands for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems

Ah, I did not know that. Thank you.

A long time ago, back in the 1960s, I started working for Bell Laboratories (the R&D arm of what used to be AT&T) as a member of one of the Central Office equipment design teams. One of our tasks was to provide extensive documentation of our design work. There were detailed guidelines for this sort of technical writing.

One absolute rule was that the first time that a TLA* was used in a document, it had to be explained, usually in a footnote on the page where the TLA was first used. Like this:

---

*TLA: Three Letter Acronym. Frequently used to refer to an acronym with any number of letters.

Yes, acronyms are convenient except for people who don't know what they stand for because they are not in the industry for which it is used. That is why I thought I should explain what it means since someone brought it up.

ADAS is usually not used by the manufacturers for marketing to buyers, therefore it is not commonly known by the general public as to what it means. It is used mainly in the service and technician side of things.