Question on Collision Mitigation Braking System and Rear Visibility

L

Lowell_Greenberg

Active Member
I was test driving a 2018 Clarity yesterday down a two lane road at about 40 mph. Apparently based on traffic traveling in the opposite direction in the other lane, the driver display flashed a Brake warning. I do not believe the car actually braked, but it was certainly distracting- and if the car did brake- dangerous. Is this normal behavior? Is the newer Accord's version of Honda Sensing more likely to avoid false positives? As a reference point, this has never occurred on my 2018 Subaru Eyesight equipped vehicle. False positives are extremely rare for this vehicle, and driving up, for example, forested two lane roads is never an issue.

Also, while I was aware that rear visibility was not great on the Clarity, I was wondering how this impacts safety. For example, when I was looking in the rear view mirror to check any cars overtaking me from behind, it was difficult to see more than the tops of cars from any reasonable distance. This made it difficult for me to estimate their actual distance and speed. In practice, is this a serious issue in daily driving?

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I have owned my Clarity for four months and I have received three or four false positive warnings. This is more warnings than I have received from a 2017 Toyota RAV-4 warning system. I have not found the Clarity false positives an issue after the first one. I have never relied on these systems to drive. I think relying on them makes me a less attentive driver. I keep them turned on as ancillary information. Importantly, I have not experienced any false negatives.

I have had no issues with the rear view mirror. The adjustment of it is important and other owners in other sections of this blog have commented on strategies for adjusting the mirror.

Good luck in deciding your next car. Hope you find an ev that works for you.
 
I do get some false positive Brake warnings, usually when I'm going around an exit ramp curve at a relatively fast speed or if there are construction barrels that confuse the car. Those false positive brake warnings have yet to trigger an automatic brake situation, but I have it set to be fairly conservative (early Brake warning). They're easy to ignore. I've almost never had it alert for traffic heading in the opposite direction, with the exception of a sharp curve for incoming traffic.

I've had no issues with the rear view mirror. I've even started to ignore the view I get from the little pass-through in the trunk. That pass-through only lets me see the grill of the car behind me, which I don't care about.
 
There's a trunk view pass through window that significantly aids in rear visibility. Off of the truck, the inside window (behind the rear center seat) is frosted, and some dealers don't remove the frosting before putting the car up for test drives (mine didn't). You need the extra window to get good rear visibility- this might have been your problem.

I'd do another drive, and check that they have removed the frosting

That said, visibility is better in the Subaru
 
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