Collision mitigation sucks. Is dangerous and brings down mpg.

But it's the same situation; it's merely changing the viewpoint from the driver which is you to the driver of the car behind you.

I wrote:

It only "invites" rear end collisions if you're following the car in front of you too closely, which sadly is an all too common habit among human drivers.
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So change that to:

It only "invites" rear end collisions if the car behind you is following you too closely, which sadly is an all too common habit among human drivers.
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The rest of my comment applies equally to either case.

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On 200 mile Interstate highway road trip today in clear weather and light traffic with ACC on at 70mph. For no obvious reason, the Clarity braked hard briefly, even with the nearest car in front way ahead of my set distance and moving at about my speed (or maybe slightly faster). My wife said "why did you do that?" I said "It was the Clarity." I didn't like the that surprise braking at all and if traffic had been heavier I could easily have been hit from behind. We spent some time after that reading about, and then attempting to, turn off ACC to use regular cruise control. We could not figure it out, because simply holding the distance button down (like it says to do in the manual) did not work. Until I figure out what happened and how to prevent it, I'm not using ACC. And, BTW, this was not a collision mitigation warning because there was no dash light "BRAKE!" or audible warning; I think it was the auto cruise control getting an errant signal.

 

That reads like a "false positive" detection caused the car to think it needed to brake. The high incidence of false positives is one of the worst problems facing designers of self-driving cars.

But without knowing a lot more about how the system works, and about what causes false positives, it's hard to talk intelligently about what can be done to solve the problem.

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This begs the question, why use ACC when someone is following behind you too closely? We all know that the suite of Honda Sensing features are far from perfect, and not even Tesla’s make the right decisions 100% of the time. Use ACC where it’s safe to do so, but don’t expect primitive self-driving features to take over when traffic is too heavy or the road conditions make it too risky.

 

Works great for me.


Sent from my iPhone using Inside EVs

 

Here’s my 2 cents and remember you get what you paid for:
I keep all the Honda Sense features on but drive like they’re not there.

The current state of driver assistance features (and I emphasize the word assist) is kind of like a newly minted “nugget” wingman. He’s supposed to have your back but is so new that you can’t really trust him. He’s so green that he not only will fail to keep you safe, but he’s also liable to do something entirely unforeseen and stupid. So you have to keep an eye on him at all times.

So for me the Honda Sense is a backup for my inevitable driving lapses but not one I trust to work perfectly or even 100% of the time. It is however, better than nothing until the current state of computing/sensors/algorithms evolves into something better on its way to autonomous driving. (If I live that long.)
And preliminary data is showing that even today’s rather primitive and not totally reliable driver’s aids like Tesla’s and Honda Sense are making driving safer than not having them at all.

 

I do a lot of freeway driving from Palm Springs to Los Angeles twice a week. I find the ACC, LKAssist and Collision brake system work fine for me - as long as I use them correctly. I never use them around town. On long stretches of freeway they're a gem to have. However, I do hit the center cancel button frequently when I'm changing lanes or encounter sudden heavy traffic. When all is clear I simply push the top resume button and everything goes back to my settings. One complaint is I wish the LKAssist was a little more aggressive. But it does work well on a straight stretch of freeway but sometimes wanders on a moderate curve. Another complaint is I wish the LKAssist would kick in at a lower speed. It doesn't start until 45 MPH. Lexus LKAssist kicks in at 30MPH. I'm sure in about 5 more years, all these functions will be much more sophisticated and helpful.

 

My first thoughts about this conversation goes back to my professional life. I fly airplanes for a living with very sophisticated autopilots. But the first rule of flying is "Fly the airplane". You don't ever let the automation take you someplace you don't want to go. If necessary, and when appropriate, reduce the level of automation so that you can keep the airplane in a safe condition.

These are lessons that people are going to have to learn with these new driving assistance features. Lane keeping assistance, adaptive cruise control, collision mitigation braking system, these are all automatic systems that have the potential to cause the driver to be less attentive to driving the vehicle. When in fact, the driver needs to be MORE attentive. As the driver of your vehicle, you are responsible for operating your vehicle safely. "The collision mitigation braking system didn't stop me in time" is an argument that will be used in a court case, and no doubt in my mind some driver will blame the auto manufacturer for that failure. I know for a fact that collision mitigation braking systems have been around for over 25 years, but the auto manufacturers were reluctant to put them in cars due to the potential liability that they perceived for just such a situation.

For me, I *HATE* all of those features on my car. I don't use the lane keeping assist, I changed the adaptive cruise control to regular cruise control, and every time I get in the car I turn off the collision mitigation braking system. Call me a control freak (which I probably am) but I want to make those decisions, not let the car make them for me.

 

Hmm.... I thought version 9 is the enhanced autopilot which include the lane change?

 

That's not a reason why we shouldn't use features which enhance safety; that's a reason to make the guy behind you back off, or else move over and let him pass. I find that usually tapping on the brakes, so that my brake lights come on, 2 or 3 times, is usually sufficient to discourage a tail-gater.

From comments above it looks like there are times when it's better to turn off TACC, such as in stop-and-go traffic. But tail-gaters should be dealt with in some other fashion.

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I think we may be talking past each other.

Yes, Tesla Autopilot has an "automated" lane change feature. But the driver has to initiate that lane change, each time, by using the turn signal. Use the turn signal under the proper circumstances, and the car will change lanes to the left or right. But last I read, the car will never, under any circumstances, initiate a lane change on its own; not even to avoid an accident. If that has changed, it must be a very recent change, because Mr. Google doesn't find any recent change to how that works.

Discussion on the subject from last December here.

 

The training pilots receive, in being trained to "keep watching the skies"*, is something the average person does not understand. That's why Tesla calling its suite of driver assist features "Autopilot" was a bad idea. The average person thinks an airplane's autopilot is a "set it and forget it" thing. When reading up on the subject after Elon Musk made some comments about how an airplane's autopilot works, I was very surprised to learn that a pilot is not allowed to walk out of the cockpit to get himself a cup of coffee or visit the rest room when the autopilot is "flying" the plane.

There has been much discussion of how use of semi-automated driving systems -- not just Tesla's -- can lull the driver into a false sense of security. Unfortunately that's human nature. It takes a lot of training for pilots to overcome that. Training that ordinary car drivers never get.

Frankly, I don't see how this is a problem that's fixable by driver's education. We don't require that people driving cars receive hundreds or thousands of hours of training before they're allowed to drive solo, as airplane pilots do. If we did, then most people wouldn't be able to drive, and that's just not going to work. It would crash our economy if driving was that restricted.

No, we are going to have to wait for truly autonomous, Level 4/5 self-driving systems for cars, before that problem is solved. In other words, "fixing" the average human driver isn't possible, so fixing the self-driving car has to be the solution.

But in the meantime, we shouldn't forget that famous saying "The perfect is the enemy of the good." Semi-automated driving systems are saving lives now, and we shouldn't stop using them just because occasionally they fail to save a life. Advocating not using these systems would be as foolish and counter-productive as asserting that everybody should turn off their air bags because a couple dozen of them have exploded and caused serious injury or death.

The point is that even though they will occasionally fail, you're still safer using them than not using them when they are used as the auto maker intended.

That said, I think it is also pretty clear that auto makers need to do a better job of educating their customers on how these safety features should be used, what their capabilities are -- and aren't -- and when they should not be used.

*As one 'fifties science fiction movie put it

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It is... Ver 9 is on beta and coming out in the next feel weeks

 

I can't stress enough how important it is to be fast on that cancel button.

Even a car doing 10-15 mph faster than you can cut in front too close and your ACC can 'slam' the brakes. The system is GREAT for normal driving but it cannot predict the behavior of other drivers that don't follow best practices.

Also, please note these features have been around for some time now. My wife has a 2017 pilot and my new clarity behaves almost identically to hers.

 

Maybe this has been discussed. I find that the CMBS works sometimes. I don't trust it. When approaching a vehicle, I always have to step on the brake.

 

Bob, you're a software guy. You know the programmers had to walk a fine line between protecting the passengers from a certain crash and annoying the driver with frequent interventions. You're doing the right thing to trust your human senses more than that program.

 

It works pretty well when using cruise control.

 

Of course the Adaptive Cruise Control is looking further down the road than the CMBS system, so it can decelerate more gently.