Collision Avoidance Systems

I have a 2022 Acura RDX with what Honda calls Collision Mitigation Braking System (TM) and like you I’m not crazy about it. One thing in the Acura it has to be disabled each time you restart the vehicle. Quoting from the manual

“The CMBS (TM) is turned on every time you start the engine, even if you turned it off the last time you drove the vehicle.”

I’ve had several situations where I was thankful no one was behind me.

My Crosstrek with Eyesight that I've driven for over three years now hasn't had an issue like that. It can slow down a bit and even "tap the brakes" when in its adaptive cruise mode when a car ahead of me is slow to merge right for an exit ramp. It also warns me if it senses me backing when another vehicle is coming in from the side. The front braking is controlled by dual cameras and the rear, I think, by radar. I've never had an issue with oncoming traffic in its own lane triggering the system. The Eyesight camera system also monitors lane lines ahead of me in case I drift a little over the lane marker and maybe it's also used to confirm oncoming traffic is in its lane coming towards me and is not a threat.

I have the same system as Craig but my area has heavy traffic with aggressive drivers. When someone "cuts me off," that is, changes lanes to get in front of me, so that I have to take evasive action or slam on the brakes, the EyeSight system slams on the brakes before I can. It can use maximum braking. It also sees the lanes based on pavement markings. I think the automatic system is a plus.

There was one quick stop where the system saved me from a rear-end collision. There was heavy traffic exceeding the speed limit. All cars were tailgating. I had no forward visibility because a larger car was in front of me. The traffic stopped quickly and I was not ready, but the system slammed on the brakes. That incident alone made any difficulty with the system acceptable.

Bdhsfz6, I think the fact that no lines were on the road confused the system. If a double yellow line and shoulder lines were there it would not have applied the brakes.

My stinger has this garbage too. For a year it was unintrusive until one day few weeks ago. It slammed on the brakes as I was about to make a fast lane change with what I'd consider plenty of room.

So now there's a routine I go through when starting the car.

1) Disable the auto start stop - I want the engine running unless I choose to have it shutdown (mostly at long lights), not every time I come to a stop.

2) Once I'm rolling I hit the voice button and say "Search settings for forward". After a few seconds it brings up the screen to turn off the active forward collision. I've found this to be the easiest and quickest way to access that section of settings without digging 5 levels deep in the menus.

I generally keep a good distance (5-10 seconds worth) and will never tailgate on the highway. Bad things can happen when you have inadequate time to react. I drive the drivers behind me nuts when it's heavy traffic, but too bad.

My distractions are minimal. Phone is in airplane mode 100% of the time unless i'm on road trip on the open highway.

It seems this safety garbage has become mandatory and will be present on all new cars moving forward. My stinger is a '22 base model. At least it can be disabled, even if not permanently.

The forward collision is the least favorite of the safety suite the car offers. It has a backup camera with audio alert as well as pedestrian/car something or other where hazards approaching from the rear sides generate an alert as well as active braking. Supposedly I can't back into something, car will brake on its own too. Haven't tested this yet.

Yes.. interesting how these collision avoidance systems seem to work.

My 2017 honda has the same stuff. I don't know about the other systems, but I can how far it looks in front of the car..

1,2, 3, 4 car lengths.

If it's set to far (anything beyond 2) it sees things that it shouldn't. I've actually had the system come to a complete stop when there's no other cars. Walls. Or anything else.

Setting the look ahead distance to 1, the system panics and abruptly throws out the anchor if it sees a car transitioning from one lane through my lane to the other ER r side of me.

To make it worse, its tied into the cruise control system and it can't be disabled.

I've thought about placing something over the camera lense in the windshield. I've also considered putting a mirror in front of the camera and showing the system "just sky."

In my opinion, these systems aren't quite up to the task and it's painfully obvious there are more conditions / situations these systems just aren't capable of handling. WhTs worse, it appears these systems don't have any way to "learn."

Then, onto of this, I'm not a fan of these systems.

Yes.. interesting how these collision avoidance systems seem to work.

My 2017 honda has the same stuff. I don't know about the other systems, but I can how far it looks in front of the car..

1,2, 3, 4 car lengths.

If it's set to far (anything beyond 2) it sees things that it shouldn't. I've actually had the system come to a complete stop when there's no other cars. Walls. Or anything else.

Setting the look ahead distance to 1, the system panics and abruptly throws out the anchor if it sees a car transitioning from one lane through my lane to the other ER r side of me.

To make it worse, its tied into the cruise control system and it can't be disabled.

I've thought about placing something over the camera lense in the windshield. I've also considered putting a mirror in front of the camera and showing the system "just sky."

In my opinion, these systems aren't quite up to the task and it's painfully obvious there are more conditions / situations these systems just aren't capable of handling. WhTs worse, it appears these systems don't have any way to "learn."

Then, onto of this, I'm not a fan of these systems.

Yes.. interesting how these collision avoidance systems seem to work.

My 2017 honda has the same stuff. I don't know about the other systems, but I can how far it looks in front of the car..

1,2, 3, 4 car lengths.

If it's set to far (anything beyond 2) it sees things that it shouldn't. I've actually had the system come to a complete stop when there's no other cars. Walls. Or anything else.

Setting the look ahead distance to 1, the system panics and abruptly throws out the anchor if it sees a car transitioning from one lane through my lane to the other ER r side of me.

To make it worse, its tied into the cruise control system and it can't be disabled.

I've thought about placing something over the camera lense in the windshield. I've also considered putting a mirror in front of the camera and showing the system "just sky."

In my opinion, these systems aren't quite up to the task and it's painfully obvious there are more conditions / situations these systems just aren't capable of handling. WhTs worse, it appears these systems don't have any way to "learn."

Then, onto of this, I'm not a fan of these systems.

I don't like them either, but for an entirely different reason, they drive my RADAR detector nuts. ;p

Not all car do this, but I recently learned that if you take the rear view mirror selector switch and leave it in the right mirror position, when you select reverse gear, the right mirror tilts downward so you can see the curb.

A friend with a 2022 Subaru didn't think his car had it but then found that it was tied to the memory on seating position. Adjust the driver seat to your liking, then put the car in reverse with mirror switch in the right position, adjust the mirror, then reprogram the seat position.

On my Acura RDX, the feature also works on the left side mirror by putting the switch into the left position and then selecting reverse. The mirror tilts down to your preset position as defined by the key fob.

That's interesting. The best non-"safety" feature of my Eyesight system is its adaptive cruise control and I had thought until now that it would be universally loved.

With the old cruise control systems that always use engine power to try to maintain a desired speed, I hated slowly creeping up to a vehicle ahead of me traveling 0+ to around 3 mph under my set speed where I'd have to disable the cruise until I had a safe time to pass, then resume cruise once I was ahead of it. With adaptive cruise, mine maintains the set speed until it gets too close to the vehicle ahead, and like yours, I have four settings of separation I can choose before it kicks in. To me, it's a perfect system. There is a little learning curve when switching from old cruise to adaptive cruise but I quickly learned that when following a car 5-10 mph under my speed setting, I can't assume I'm still going at my desired speed and I should find a time to pass the vehicle when able.

My car has more safety features besides the front and rear braking and I love them all: blind spot detection, lane departure, etc. The blind spot detection (a flashing orange light on the outside rearview mirror) does go ballistic when I'm in a double left turn lane with my left blinker on when the system sees a vehicle in the leftmost lane and warns me of a potential conflict even though we're both turning left in our own lanes. Lane departure warnings may also annoy those drivers who switch lanes without signaling. I find these features cute while others may hate them. But then, I do always signal before turns or lane changes.

My '17 F-350 has none of this stuff. It does have crank windows (best for a crank driver).

My problem with all these "features" isn't that they are so far "imperfect". It is that there is no standardization. What if you have two or more cars? What if you rent a car?

I hope that I'm wrong. Tell me that I'm wrong.

Your wrong and likely are politically left, no MAGA right, wait perhaps independent.. perhaps I should have stopped at your wrong.. just wrong!

I had to drive a rental a couple years ago. I believe it was a caravan. I was on cruise on the interstate and went out to pass. I was completely in the passing lane and I was know being slowed down by the car with other cars coming up on me quickly. This was now a panic mode because I wasn't sure what I could do.

I’m not familiar with Ford products but if an F-350 is the same as “Super Duty” it may have adaptive cruise control, as well as perhaps other features. See https://www.fordservicecontent.com/Ford_Content/vdirsnet/Own....

One thing about the manuals on these modern cars is they tend to be 600 pages and up, so many features get overlooked.

Yes, it is a Super Duty model.

Those features are indeed available but at higher trim levels than the one I bought. The only feature that I require is basic cruise control. As a right-lane-slug and the slowest guy around I don't need a adaptive cruise control because there is no one else to slow down for!

be curious to know what makes sense, and what does not.

Keep in mind our cars are 1998, 2006, 2007, 2011, so behind the times (I was surprised 2/4 have black boxes?).

All 4 have ABS, 3/4 have stability. I'm generally ok with this except for one thing.

On the car with a manual, the rear brakes wear out 2X as fast as the fronts because the rear brakes are always grabbing for x ms as one takes off from a stop. THIS IS MORONIC.

On the other hand, people on the forum with my car, have said they took stability off (I have never done so I think it's 2 step), and wrecked the vehicle.

A lot doesn't add up--what did people do prior to ABS and stability, let alone self parking driving auto cruise cars? Then keep in mind they weren't on the phone while driving--this is not new and not going to go away. I think I mentioned someone was driving a Ferrari behind me and holding a phone talking. I'm sure that car has bluetooth but it's just not how many people choose to talk.

It would appear collision avoidance applies brakes, does it steer as well? I can't think of any instance where it is a benefit without a driver knowing how it works...my .02

My go to spot for any GPS information.

We bought a new 2023 truck with all the bells and whistles.
We had a Dodge Ram 2500 and I am unable to drive it to my liking.
Just too big for me. My husband no longer drives and after way too many years not driving I am now having to drive again.

We bought a smaller truck.

I came here to see if anyone has anything about the new Honda 2023 navigation.
I ran across these post and after reading them I don't know if I want to keep my forward collision turned on now.

I am faced with the same decision Mary on my 2023 Toyota Crown. I have only had the car for a month and am still trying to learn all the features I never had on previous vehicles. So far I have left this feature enabled, but will be interested in reading the responses you get to your post.

I know my vision and response time is not what it used to be and I am not as confident in my driving skills as I once was. So maybe these safety features are a good thing in my case.

My car will do the same thing because it has Active Cruise Control. When that happens hit the accelerator and it will override the ACC. My car will start flashing the current speed and as soon as you take your foot off of the accelerator, ACC will be active again. Also, when ACC is active and the car starts to slow down, the brake lights are activated. At least that’s the way it works on my car. Also, you can just hit the brakes and the system will be deactivated.

I have 2020 Toyota Rav4. I keep all safety factures on, and I don't engage in cruise control until I am in interstate. When I am driving state highways or local roads, I manually drive without cruise control to prevent such hassle. Sometimes even when I am driving manually, the system might kick in if the vehicle ahead of me breaks suddenly, then the collision system alerts me with a loud continuous beep and I press the brake manually. It takes time to adjust to these new systems, but as I said, I never disable those.

That makes me feel better. My new truck has the acc but t have never used cruse control on any car. I don't drive highways if I can find another way.

While I respect that people have been annoyed by individual incidents that even seem dangerous, I strongly suspect that the overall development and evaluation was done well enough that our odds of survival are better with them turned on them with them turned off.

I suspect that many of us here at the Factory are well into our golden years and don't adapt well to these new-fangled gadgets. The younger generations will think of them as always having being there.

Phil

I have had the same problems.

GM claims they have addressed the braking issue I had on my 2022 GMC Sierra pickup.

The fix involved a software update which the dealer installed. So far, I haven't had a repeat of the sudden braking incident. We'll see what happens in the future.

THAT is the big problem with those systems including the radar cruise.
Your S curve put that truck right in front of you even though it was in their lane.
Radar cruise does similar things. The worst is when the car in front of you on a hwy takes the exit. Even though it is now in the exit lane, the radar puts on the brakes. Not good. You must be aware of its operation and ready to disable it, otherwise, it could create a BIG problem.

I was driving in a "Wash n' Dent" (thunderstorm with hail).

There were some truck tractors in font of me and the drive wheels were throwing up lots of spray, it looked like a fog bank at a moderately lo speed ~ 30 -35 MPH.

Would uou beleive the collision avoidance system could not see / detect there was a vehicle and the car kept creeping up on the rear of the tractors.

So, here's another interesting mystery about these collision avoidance systems.

Nit saying they all behave this way..

YMMV

I think one of the biggest issues with these systems is the inability to configure them to suit the driver and their habits, and have those settings retained.. It annoys me that based on my needs I have to configure the vehicle every time I drive it.

I generally agree, I suspect there's larger issues with the entire system snd configuration & retention is just a minor part of it.

The functionality of these systems varies with the manufacturer.

These automated systems on the three GM vehicles I own can all be turned off, which I do for certain types of driving.

IMO, this should be standard in the industry

The experience on my 2017 has generally been positive. ACC and Lane assist are great. The Front Assist can be a bit annoying as it kicks in sooner than I like occasionally. All of the Driver Assist features are adjustable in reaction timing but some require going in with a VAG-COM tool to set.

I have been using my car to take my husband to his appointments because of the rain and not knowing if it will be bad.
I can see the road so much better in my truck as my accourd is low to the ground and I am short. I am sure I would have seen the curb I drove over in Fort Worth if I were in the truck.
As soon as the Rainey season is over I will be taking the truck and trying out all these features.
Mary

systems have prevented that car from launching last week?

This reminds me of my favorite show, "CHiPs"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46-lEXrIlN4

I have to pull my rear dash cam video to see if it really happened. I was getting onto the Schuylkill, and a Tesla which seemingly did not want to alternate merge, backed off, and when I looked in the rearview, a woman was literally putting on her makeup.

Can the car drive itself in stop and go, or maybe I simply imagined what I saw?

I have similar options in my Toyota RAV4 2020 XLE model. When I engage in cruise control, I have the option to determine what distance my car should keep from the vehicle ahead of it, and if necessary, the car will then reduce the speed automatically; that is why it's called adaptive cruise control by Toyota. After driving the car for three years, I realized the maximum distance (level 3) is best for my need when I am using the cruise control on the interstate because level three is almost equivalent to making three seconds distance from the vehicle ahead to reduce the speed (according to the driver's license manuals).Yes, it will always keep good distance from the car ahead of me, but other drivers can also take chance to get between me and the car ahead of me; that is one of the drawbacks, but if I drive on the right lane, this level 3 works pretty good and I can drive relaxed and enjoy the scenery. However, when I am driving on the left lane and try to pass some vehicles, I disengage cruise control and drive manually to make sure I don't annoy people or reduce everyone's speed behind me. Also, another interesting observation about Toyota's adaptive cruise control, in my vehicle the car can try to keep my in the lance for several seconds without the driver's assistance (semi-automatic?), but it works best when the cruise control is active, i.e. it works best in highways with cruise control. I went to San Francisco earlier this year for a conference and one of the ride-share drivers had rav4 and he was using a third party's device that enables the Toyota to drive automatically in cruise control. That device actually enhances the built-in semi-automatic system in Toyota. The drives said it cost him near $2000 (I might be wrong). Pretty interesting.

Unfortunately, it seems the driver was seriously injured.

I imagine the parked tow truck might have triggered an automatic stop, but with the slanted flatbed "ramp" maybe not?

@johnnatash4

That tow truck should of had a squad car behind it with flashing lights IMO. Sure the airborne car driver contributed as well. But generally, on a divided highway, I don't pay too much attention to what's going on on the other side.

As near as I can tell, the tow truck was on the left shoulder. So the squad car would have only presented a solid barrier for the driver to hit, and probably would have sustained more severe injuries.

What shoulder? I don't see a shoulder next to the median.

If you stop the video at 0:07 you will see the left wheels of the truck are against the grass, and there is an obvious empty lane between the truck and the car in the far right lane.

I still don't see it.

At that same timestamp 0:07, look at the squad car on the right side of the screen. I think it's safe to say the lanes on the left side of the screen have a similar shoulder at the median.

My experience has been generally positive. A couple times it raised my eyebrows of why is it doing this?, but never caused a near accident or a feeling of loss of control. That's a problem if can't see the road and starts only looking at oncoming traffic.

My Subaru Forester & (previous Outback) have the collision avoidance system. No incidents like yours, however; the system can be a little too sensitive. Going around a sharp curve on a two lane road usually triggers the system and I have become very aware of it. Subaru also gives you the option of shutting off the system and I use this on occasion.

Subaru's generally-standard EyeSight safety features work very well in my experience. If you read the user manual, you'll see that there are pages of discussion of the limitations of these features. For example, as discussed above, they warn that Subaru's collision avoidance may not detect that you are closing quickly on a car ahead that is going around a sharp curve (because that vehicle is not in the line-of-sight of the car's cameras). You do want to read that material from time-to-time so you understand what the car can and can't automatically do.

Nonetheless the refinement in these systems over the last decade has been astonishing, comparing for example a current Subaru over our 2017 Nissan in adaptive cruise control and other safety features, the new models are just far better functioning.

You don't take your eye off the road and count on technology to keep you out of an accident, but generally, you want these safety systems installed in your vehicle and turned on and working with you--they do help a lot, and they are steadily improving within reasonable limits.

They are a pain

I think this is a healthy attitude. If the systems were as bad as some folks suppose they'd be killing people left and right. Instead, I think on net effect the saves outweigh the harms.

I'm a Tesla owner with the FSD beta operating. While it does alarming things now and again, I am ALWAYS monitoring closely. In between the alarming things it does much better at lane keeping than I do, and with eight cameras catches things I'd miss. I currently think me supervising it is a safer driving result than either of us separately, and steadily improving with new releases.

I was on another thread/another forum and someone's ABS failed on his Lincoln Navigator. Question arose can it be rebuilt.

A couple of us stepped forward and said we DIY'd and had our modules rebuilt by Module Master. On my car the dealer wanted $4200 so that was not anything I was willing to consider. I paid $249 to have it rebuilt, had to buy some software and tools, fixed it for $500. It came with a 5 year warranty and no issues in 7 years. Another guy said no issues in I think 17 years.

Well, surprisingly, to some, the above is not that good, that's $500 more than they want to spend. So, the question came up, can't you just disable the ABS? I answered that it should already be disabled. You can pass a PA State Safety inspection with a yellow, but not red, brake warning.

If ABS can cost $4-$6k to repair, what would a collision avoidance system cost?

I have many friends & coworkers who are driving vehicles with one or more of these systems disabled. With the average age of vehicles at 12+ years, the number on the road like this today would be surprising to say the least.

I had a 2007 Chevy Uplander and a month after the warranty expired, the stabitrack system failed. The fix was to replace a module the size of a postage stamp. It cost $1100 for the part alone. It may not seem like much now but this was 15 years ago.

The vehicle ran fine all summer but without AWD. I live on a hill and when winter came, I couldn't do without the AWD and had to pay the piper. If it weren't for that hill, I never would have fixed it.

I'm a GM fanboy, our purchased new 2011 has had so many things break it's simply astounding. And my dream car is a new Tahoe or Escalade? So I can beat my head against a wall for another 15 years? lol

My wife's car too, "Service Stabilitrak."

I bought a $100 reader that can do ABS and airbags, needing the ABS part.

Turns out it was the brake position sensor, at the time, wow, $7 on amazon? That was a cheap repair (but why would it even go bad).

If you ever see a GM driving down the road with brake lights on, that's why. But it disables traction and stability.

The $100 reader turned out to be a good value, because the GM had to have its airbag warning reset as well. Incredible how unreliable GM cars can be.

Truly sad? I saw on YouTube the channel called Neutral Drop. It's a couple of ex con bros who do Cash for Cars and they trash cars on the videos, like pour paint into the crankcase, etc. They took a seemingly mint 2012 car nicer than my wife's, and trashed it. Drained the oil and started it, it threw a rod immediately. Then the sledgehammered the doors and windows. Car had a leather interior, one would think that all those parts are valuable. But apparently it's valuable for scrap, there are likely too many of these GM 2008-2018 that are already junked. Hard to believe until one sees it on YouTube.