DRCC manual override

Remember that at all times you are the driver of the car. You are allowed to operate the brakes before the car thinks 'hey, buddy. Better start braking now!.'

 

It's probably possible - but you'd pay for it - and it may not be as useful.

The problem is, the further ahead the detection is, the more false detections it will get, particularly with bends in the road, items on the side of the road. An object twice as far is only - is it only 1/8th as big an image for the DRCC to "see".

It also has to not only see the vehicle, but has to determine it's speed too.

I think it's a good compromise the way it is, relying on our eyes for events like you've described.

 

It was probably slowing more than you thought, but obviously not enough for your comfort. The only way I can think for the car to "jerk forward" when cancelling DRCC is if you canceled while it was applying regen to slow the vehicle. I have certainly experienced that. Cancelling DRCC also cancels any braking it is doing, however light it may be. This is all assuming your foot is off of the accelerator at the time.

On the one hand, if you take back manual control you take back ALL control. There's no cooperative control. It can't "assist" because what it thought was correct apparently was wrong or dangerous -- or else why would you have reverted to full manual?

On the other hand, if you have DRCC then you have PCS (pre-collision system). Even if DRCC is off or was recently cancelled, this other system is ALWAYS monitoring the (same) radar data and it will step in if it thinks an actual collision is impending. It will either auto-brake (hard!) or try to make any braking you're already doing more effective (harder!). This system is even more conservative than DRCC, from my experience, so if you don't think DRCC reacts quick enough then you likely will intercede before PCS gets truly worried. (I think there's a sensitivity setting for PCS you could change.)

 

I quickly press the cruise off button on the stalk before I crash. Then the car slows down.

 

Or, you could just pull the cruise control stalk forward you. It has the same effect except you can later reset cruise control to the junk yard once you get past 25mph with an upward tap of the stalk again!

 

That's interesting, Lwirmo. I feel that the DRCC follows too far away. I set the range to one bar, and routinely find myself pressing the accelerator to close the gap. You can do that, accelerate with the cruise control On. When you press the brake it turns Off until you Resume. I find myself annoyed by drivers in front on me tapping the brakes, i see brake lights flickering for no apparent reason. I think sometimes the cruise control functions on new cars are doing this. Too bad Toyota can't offer a "downtown Oakland setting", that would be about 20 feet.

L'ectrofuel - the DRCC Will bring you to a complete stop before you crash into the car in front of you. That's one it's primary functions. It's kind of scary, but trust it. IT does work.

 

It's not really about feet it's about seconds. Next time you have a chance can you count off how many seconds it is following behind the car in front of you, and if the number of seconds is consistent at different speeds. I would certainly hope that it is staying at least two seconds back, three is even safer.

 

I'm not comfortable with "one bar" of following distance unless traffic is crawling slowly. Two bars seems good for Houston urban traffic when it's flowing. Yes, people are going to cut in because they don't know or care what "safe following distance" is, but with two bars the car handles it well. At one bar, DRCC is much more likely to brake heavily.

 

I don't think so most of the time - unless that vehicle is moving. I've tried it out and it keeps going more often than not without showing that it's locked onto the vehicle - that's when either I intervene and brake if it's shown no sign of braking (or PCS tells me to do so - but I prefer to be one ahead of PCS).

 

I use radar cruise control almost everyday. But when traffic slows very quickly to a stop, I'd rather slam on the brakes myself than let the car do it for me. Of course, the car behind me may be following too close and the DRCC may brake too hard. Then I'm rear ended. Sometimes the DRCC stops the car a little too late for comfort even in the farthest following setting. Better safe than sorry!