We had a discussion about CMBS long time ago, and most of the folks posting were annoyed when living on a curvy road and getting false alarms. Anyway, drove home tonight and deer crossed my road directly in our path. We were likely traveling about 30 mph. I went to break and car applied the breaks fiercely. We stopped so fast, my wife thought the seat belt may of bruised her. That being said, no deer was hit, and we are fine. I was breaking on my own at the time of the incident, and I feel, in this case, I could of managed it without the cars help, but wow, that thing really breaks when collision is imminent. My take is I'd rather have the feature than not. I have the setting at the default "normal" range (neither short or long). -Dan PS: This is the first and only time in 3 years of ownership that the breaks applied on their own. I have sometimes seen the "BREAK" warning but rarely. In those cases the car shows the warning and maybe beeps but doesn't apply the breaks for you.
Great news, that the braking feature worked for you, with no injuries, except for that possible seat belt bruising, to you or the deer, and no damage to the Clarity. I've also had occasional BRAKE warning light flashes, but never had the car actually brake spontaneously, in almost 4 years, and I hope I never need it, but it's reassuring to know that it actually works, if needed.
I'm glad it's your 1st time having the car break for you. I lost count. I will check the settings to make sure in normal range
In the previous thread and from other posters, I've come to believe the default "normal" is probably what most folks want. But it is adjustable; I imagine if I got a lot of false alarms I'd consider flipping it to be less aggressive-- but in my case I haven't had any miss-fires. Given how aggresively the car breaked, I can also imagine how scary a miss-fire would be. It felt like the equivalent of me pressing the break down hard as I can with both feet at the same time. Maybe the main downside, had this occurred (not on my country road), but with someone behind me, it would of been quite difficult for anyone behind me to break. So I could see such a severe breaking action causing being rear-ended in some situations. In the case of the deer it was warranted. While I feel I may of been able to stop on my own without help, it's also possible the car actually sensed that I would not have. I mean whatever formula it uses to avoid collision may "know" that my speed relative to the object required the response. Anyway, I'll never know for sure. I'd also add ABS kicked in. We were going slow enough that it only "stuttered" maybe twice before coming to complete stop but I could feel the ABS too.
As you say, in your case the braking was warranted and it may have saved the day. I just wanted to mention that there are circumstances when the automated systems are doing something that they will disengage and defer to a driver input. My specific example is when you are following someone with the ACC active, sometimes if they suddenly begin to veer into an exit lane while slowing down, the system will still see them as a threat and slow down abruptly. As the driver, you see that they are exiting and it is not necessary to slow down... If you are famiiar enough with this scenario and see it happening, all you have to do is depress the accellerator a little, and the vehicle will cease decellerating and go on it's way. I realize this is quite different than a panic scenario, but thought I would mention it in case someone hasn't experienced it. I might have expected that the CMBS would not have engaged if it sensed that the driver was already braking. I have experienced this to the degree that when I have seen the flashing brake warning, it has stopped when I applied the brake. I don't know if it ceased because it saw I was taking the correct action, or if my action releived the situation... But - Dan's experience illustrates that the system probably does judge whether it needs to 'take control' even if you have already reacted. It is a little scary that one of these systems [could] falsely react in some way and cause an accident rather than prevent one. Of course, humans do dumb things all the time and cause accidents too (hopefully the machines are less problematic than the humans).
I experienced two cases where the system applied the brakes hard in a scenario much like the one described above. The car braked/stopped abruptly in the left lane on a major freeway with cars behind me narrowly missing hitting my car. It did not immediately restart and go. It was very nearly an underwear changing situation! THE SYSTEM IS DANGEROUS. I reported it to Honda and the NHTSA but heard nothing.
Fortunately, we have the option to use or not use these features. In my opinion, they are generally annoying and potentially dangerous. They breed poor/lazy driving habits. And when someone switches from a car laden with nanny features to one that is void on them, disaster awaits. The only one that gets used is Adaptive Cruise Control on long trips.
Seems like there is a way to set the automatic braking feature to be less sensitive. I was not aware that could be done. Can someone add the instructions. I do use the Adaptive cruise control, as well as lane keeping assist quite frequently. They are very good features.
My understanding is that you can manually turn the CMBS off, but it will turn back on the next time you drive. There are three sensitivity settings in the Vehicle Driver Assist setup (Long/Normal/Short). I assume if you select "Short" that the system is less sensitive. I have not tried these settings so I have no personal experience. My suspicion is that this setting would persist if you changed it, but you would have to try it to see.
Thanks for the reply. The CMBS system turns on by default every time you start the car. You have to remember to manually turn it off. To adjust CMBS system distances, I just found the URL below for a short video. You can also find it by googling "Honda Clarity CMBS" https://www.hondainfocenter.com/2019/Clarity-Electric/How-To-Videos/Electric/Honda-Sensing-Technology/How-to-Use-the-Collision-Mitigation-Braking-System-CMBS_Clarity18/
