Lane Departure Warning

I much prefer the system on my 2016 Mazda CX9. It gives a good jiggle of the wheel and a slight turn of the wheel back into my lane. The Prime system is disappointing.

I also much prefer the Blind Spot Warning of the Mazda. It gives a loud beeping when a car is in the blind spot and I have the turn signal on for a lane change. The visual warning in the mirror and the Heads Up Display are visible but silent when the turn signal is not on. But...the Mazda really needs the Prime's front proximity sensors and the heated steering wheel would be really nice (both are available on the CX9 in other countries, not the U.S.).

 

The HUD also gives a visual warning if a car shows up in your blind spot ?
Nice !
Didn't know that but anyway,I am sure I read you can turn an audible signal on for the BSM in the MFD-menu .

 

I think I have observed that it works better in HOV Lanes where lane markers are more prominant. Not a scientific data.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

My LDA doesn't seem to work at night. I'll up the sensitivity though.

 

Works best on long highway trips. We live in rural New England in the woods where center striping is but advisory at best and will put you in bad verge, a ditch or stone wall at worst -- most roads are but slightly widened paved oxen paths from the late 17th to mid-18th centuries.

We turned it off.

 

Clear well marked lanes are needed (not available in WV). Have you tried turning up the sensitivity settings? Any change in usefulness?
OM pg 232 settings
“High” or “Standard”
Switches the LDA system lane deviation sensitivity. (→P. 390)
“High” or “Standard” or “Low”
Switches the LDA system vehicle sway warning sensitivity. (→P. 390)

Got to view the BSM in action on a 2016 Sienna van. Works very well. Maybe it should buzz if you steered that way or signaled.
Says BSM only buzz when turning on and for Rear cross traffic alert
OM pg 409
The Blind Spot Monitor on/off screen and indicator
The Blind Spot Monitor function and Rear Cross Traffic Alert function can be switched on and off using the multi-information display. (→P. 231)
When switched on, the BSM indicator illuminates on the meter and the buzzer sounds.
Rear Cross Traffic Alert buzzer (Rear Cross Traffic Alert function only)
When a vehicle approaching from the right or left rear of the vehicle is detected, a buzzer sounds from the driver’s side instrument panel.

 

Anyone get their LDA to work at night?

 

Yes. I had LDA on the whole way down from Ohio to Texas and back. Worked fine both day and night. I set the sensitivity to high so that it would start working before actually leaving the lane. The standard setting seemed to allow the car to actually start leaving the lane before it started to do anything.

 

I'm finding LDA to be annoying. Too much beeping. We need to avoid potholes on California roads.


iPhone ? Pro

 

At least you can avoid them.

 

Related question: How do self driving cars avoid potholes, rocks, animals, and other road obstructions?

 

Good question. What about construction flaggers, school crossing guards and police traffic directors?

 

The video is from my Youtube channel. I have tested LDA/SA quite a few times, and sometimes it does feel like the vehicle would past the lines and sometimes it reacts fast enough before it hits the line but it is quite close to the lines most of the time. There is probably a high chance that your vehicle could bump the car in the next lane if they are also close to the lines when your vehicle drifts to the sides.

My friend who owns an Audi A3 says his car would not even get that close at all when I demonstrated the LDA/SA to him.

 

I think this goes too far. I used steering assist on a trip from Ohio to Texas and back (2,500 mile round trip) and found the steering assist was a helpful feature for reducing "fatigue" in that it helped me on those occasions when I would start to leave my lane. It required less effort on my part to get back to the center of the lane than I would have had to use without any steering assist. I believe this is what it was designed for, not for actually keeping the car in the center of the lane. So compared to nothing, it was helpful.

Now, compared to full LKA it will probably disappoint since it does not keep the car centered in the lane. The one time I let the car drive itself for an extended period it started ping-ponging back and forth from one side of the lane to the other. Eventually, the sway warning came on advising me to rest. I also found you need to set the sensitivity to high to get it to start warning/steering before the car actually leaves the lane.

But as an assistant to an actively steered vehicle I found it to be helpful.

 

I've never experienced Toyota's LKA, unless it's the same idea as Tesla's equivalent Autopilot function. Tesla will automatically steer to keep you centered in your lane, even as the lane turns. I test-drove a Volt a few months ago, and found that it behaved like what we saw in the video: It doesn't drive the car perfectly centered, but it helps prevent you from drifting over and hitting somebody.

So I gather that the idea is to not drive the car for you, but to keep you from getting into trouble. You are still the captain and the helmsman, whereas under Tesla Autopilot, you are captain and the car does helmsman duty.

 

I don't know if people have noticed the LDW going off in situations where you aren't departing a lane. We have a lot of roads here that have been painted with a sealant to try to stop cracks from becoming potholes. Today I was driving dead center of the lane and the LDW started beeping because one of the lines of sealant was running parallel to the road and was such that I was over it. I had the same thing happen a few weeks ago when I was driving down a road where the snow had only barely been cleared from the travel lane and it saw the snow line as a lane boundary and started beeping at me. My wife found it amusing when I started telling to car to leave me alone I was in my lane. I will say this, all the beepers and messages causes me to talk at my car more than normal, or maybe I am losing it .

 

That would explain something. I have one spot in my daily commute where the ldw frequently goes off, and it is on a piece of road that has a sealant strip right across the lane.

 

I have quite as story around the LKA function. I have spent over 5 month actively complaining to Toyota regarding this non-Lane Keep Assist portion of the "Toyota Safety Suite" When we purchased our 2017 Prius Prim Advanced it was not yet available for a test drive. My wife's 2012 Prius Plug In (we were really early adopters) had just been totaled and we wanted the Prius Prime Advanced because it had all the latest and greatest safety features including Lane Departure with Lane Keep Assist. The dealer who knew much less than we did about the features of the new Prius Prime Advanced told us that we could drive a RAV4 or a Camry with the "Toyota Safety Suite" because all of the Toyota models have the same equipment and The "Safety Suite" is designed to work the same way on all of the Toyota models. We drove both the RAV4 and the Camry and found the LKA to function in a reliable and effective way. We ordered and took delivery of the Prius Prime Advanced with the "Toyota Safety Suite" which includes the Lane Departure Warning with Steering Assist.

My wife is the primary driver of this car and she was the exclusive operator for the first few months we owned it. We took a trip to upstate New York and on the way back I drove the car for the first time on the highway. The LKA didn't assist in at way at all. When we arrived home I immediately contacted the dealership and told them this was a problem they suggested I make an appointment for them to check it out. I brought the car into the dealer who at the end of the day said to me the LKA works as it was engineered to work. I asked why the other Toyota models functioned differently? I was told the Prius was engineered differently. This went back and forth for a few visits to the dealership. Finally I was able to make a ride-along appointment with the dealership service manager.

At the scheduled time I met the service manager in his office and before we left for the ride along the service manage spent over 30 minutes reviewing the online Toyota technical notes regarding the Lane Departure Warning with Steering Assist because he said that he was not very familiar with the system adjustment and operation and he wanted to be sure that we had everything set correctly when we went on our ride-along. We went into the car and I suggested that the service manager drive the car. He agreed and we went on our ride. We drove about 7 or 8 miles on varied roads primarily black asphalt pavement with white broken or solid lines. The service manager drove the entire way. As we drove along and he tried to get the LKA to actually lane keep assist he commented that the LKA wasn't working correctly then after a few more minutes of driving he said the LKA "doesn't really work at all". After we drove the route the service manager had planned out we returned to the dealership service department.

Now this got interesting as the service manager said come into my office I want to call the Toyota Technical Support Representative. He placed the call and put the call on speaker phone, I was able to hear the complete conversation. The service manager explained the problem and my complaint to the Toyota Technical Support Representative. The response made my mouth drop open. The Toyota Technical Support Representative told the service manager "just disable the LKA it doesn't really work at all." The service manager replied that I was very concerned with safety and didn't want to "just disable the LKA" that we had purchased the Prius Prime Advanced because it had this feature. Shortly after this time the service manager ended the call. With a quizzical look he said to me he was sorry and that he would open a case with Toyota regarding this issue.

I won't give you all the gory details but since this time I have emailed both Akio Toyoda and Jim Lentz multiple times, and I have had multiple conversation with Toyota's headquarters in Texas and I had a meeting and ride-along with Mark Slade who is a Toyota Field Technical Specialist, a position I am told is four levels above the guy who told the service manager to "just disable the LKA it doesn't really work at all." Mark Slade met me at the dealership, something I am told is quite unusual as the Toyota Technical people don't usually interact with customers only dealers and dealer technicians. The second ride-along with Mark Slade produced the same results as the ride-along with the service manager. Mark told me he wasn't really familiar with the LKA function in the Prius Prime Advanced so he took one for a ride the day before he met with me. You can't imagine the result of this meeting and ride-along, the LKA didn't function. Mark Slade the Toyota Field Technical Specialist, said the LKA didn't function correctly and he was going to send a report to Japan regarding this problem. I am quite sure this is not the first report of this problem, but Toyota has refused to actually acknowledge this problem nor make a fix that produces safe operation of the vehicle. The responses from Toyota that I am aware of have varied from "just disable the LKA it doesn't really work at all." Toyota designed the LKA to be gentle and work less abruptly. The last answer means what? The lane keep assist just doesn't work so if you wait for it to "assist" you'll sideswipe the car in the next lane.

My advice to all of us who know this is a problem that is related to safety is to go to NTSB.GOV and file a report. Secondly I suggest you email a complaint to Akio Toyoda and Jim Lentz at the following addresses. '[email protected]'; '[email protected]' Be sure to include at least your vehicles information i.e. model year, and VIN number. Perhaps if enough of us make the highest levels of the company aware in numbers Toyota will make a fix to the LKA that will make the car as safe as it is supposed to be.