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Lane Departure Warning

Discussion in 'Prime Main Forum (2017-2022)' started by ttait, Nov 28, 2016.

  1. Lee Jay

    Lee Jay Senior Member

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    I just drove a 2017 Avalon 1,200 miles. LDA/SA on that car behaved largely the same as it does on my Prime. Perhaps SA is slightly stronger but not by much. Detection and activation were similar in that it would usually let you deviate a few feet over the lane marker before SA would correct and wind or road crown could effectively overcome the correction.
     
  2. ttait

    ttait Active Member

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    Until someone dies.....
     
  3. fuzzy1

    fuzzy1 Senior Member

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    ... which currently happens over 100 times per day. (That is the overall traffic carnage, not just for this particular scenario. But the vast bulk of it results from driver error or misconduct.)

    Staying in lane has been an essential responsibility of the driver ever since multi-lane roads were created. You'll have an extremely steep challenge in attempting to re-define that it is now the car's responsibility, so that the driver can direct his-her attention elsewhere, before true autonomous vehicles are even available.
     
    #103 fuzzy1, Jun 25, 2018
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  4. mr88cet

    mr88cet Senior Member

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    My guess would be that they scaled LKA back to LDW exactly because they perceived any system that reduces the need for driver attention upon the road to be dangerous.
     
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  5. PCPrime

    PCPrime Member

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    and possible lawsuits, when the car "provide assistance" and when the driver depend totally on such "assistance", it will be the car's fault if accident happens and thus the liability is on the car manufacturer.
     
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  6. ttait

    ttait Active Member

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    Except you ignore the whole 'touch screen' basis of the car. In order to do many of the things the advanced offers, you MUST look at the screen (and I'm including the small displays in this) and precisely push a small non-tactile button. And you also ignore that if the car did not receive steering input, the system disconnects after a beep.
    You can say all you want to about drivers responsibility, but when the car itself REQUIRES you to look away from the road, Toyota also shares that responsibility. True LKA prevents you from crossing the lane lines should you be trying to hit the correct button for the third time.
    I still hold with the original argument that Toyota made when LKA was presented as a safety feature. It is not an autonomous system, it is a safety system. Our other car is a Volvo S90 with Pilot assist II, and it works just as my 2010 Prius LKA did. Actually a little better due to more modern technology. It doesn't drive the car, it relieves stress.
    You can watch many TV ads for cars that now offer LKA, from Cadillac to Leaf. I wonder how many of their buyers complain about this feature.
    The arguments against LKA I see here seem to be against the technology. Would you argue against DRCC because you want to be responsible for maintaining following distance and don't want that 'new-fangled' radar to slow you down? (That's the way my dad did it and it's good enough for me?) Oh, and don't forget rear cross traffic alert, because you can always look to see whose coming behind you. And what do I need Blind Spot Monitor for, I have rear view mirrors.

    Reality check here: If you don't like it, don't turn it on. But I would rather be safe, and have another set of eyes tracking the road.
     
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  7. mr88cet

    mr88cet Senior Member

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    Well, to clarify, I’m not saying that I necessarily *agree* with Toyota downgrading LKA into LDW/SA; just guessing that that was their reasoning.

    I personally am not sure which is best, all things considered, not having owned a car that has a lane-centering function, although I have test-driven Tesla Autopilot. I tell myself that, if I had that feature, I would never let myself take my eyes off the road, but I’m not sure I believe it.

    I also concur that the center-mounted touchscreen takes our eyes off the road, although, for me at least, my 2009’s controls do so equally much: Even though they’re physical buttons, I at least still can’t operate them tactilely.

    But either way, keeping my eyes on the road is ultimately my problem as a driver, in my view. If I can’t adequately do so, fiddling with the touchscreen, I know I need to wait until the driving situation allows it.

    Indeed. It might indeed be a case of lawyers winning over engineers. Then again, if I had a not-100%-flawless lane-centering function, would I keep my eyes on the road adequately? I’d know that I need to do so all the time, but would I? I tell myself “of course I would!” but *really* now, would I?
     
    #107 mr88cet, Jun 26, 2018
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  8. Lee Jay

    Lee Jay Senior Member

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    Toyota got rid of LKA in all their cars, as far as I can tell. Perhaps there was trouble with the technology.

    It's recently been replaced with Lane Tracing Assist.

     
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  9. SteveMucc

    SteveMucc Active Member

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    I never found LKA to be all that good. Sure it's better than LDW, but I found that it too often lost sight of a lane marker, it also often did bad things when you had construction zones that had badly confused things with new lanes and poorly covered up old lane markers (this happens a lot in the NJ/NY area). I did use it (better something than nothing) but it wasn't a great system. The new one doesn't do much better for lane detection, albeit it's a "bit" better, but at least it doesn't beep every time it loses the lane... that was freaking annoying!
     
  10. ttait

    ttait Active Member

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    The (serious) problem with LDW is that it doesn't W until after you D the L. And it beeps a lot in the following situations: Say you're in the #3 lane of a 4 lane freeway. The number 4 lane ends, so the lines end. The LDW goes crazy because it senses you crossed over a (non-existent) line.
    And LKA was never intended to 'steer the car through construction zones'. Just to keep you from crossing the lane markers on a well marked road and center you BEFORE you cross the lines. If it can't see the lines, you can't use it. Also didn't work in heavy rain or fog.
    LDW doesn't do anything until after you cross the line, so, if you're going to have a technology that can move the steering wheel, I'd much rather it corrects before you actually run into the car next to you.
    Like I said, you had a choice to use it. LKA was a separate button on the steering wheel. If you didn't engage it, you had LDW that worked EXACTLY like LDW does in the Prime. If you did engage it, it kept you centered in the lanes as long as it could see the markings. Much like your eyeballs work on a badly eroded surface.
    Might not have been perfect in that it required good markings, but, it truly was a safety benefit.
    I'd still like to throw a rock at the lawyer who decided to remove it.
    And as far as safety trace, what happens when the car in front of you is driven by an "impaired" person? Or suddenly swerves to avoid a ladder or some other object. There is no perfect method. But LKA would enable me to pick a destination, change an audio track, turn on the (easy to reach LOL) seat warmers, or anything else that requires you to momentarily look away from the road.

    I FIRMLY believe that it was a mistake to remove it.
     
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  11. fuzzy1

    fuzzy1 Senior Member

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    And I still firmly believe the class action lawsuit you believe is called for, will be an extremely steep legal challenge.
     
  12. mr88cet

    mr88cet Senior Member

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    That’s curious. I’ve found that LDW generally does a reliable job of warning me when I creep toward or across lane markings. That may just be luck on my part in terms of the particular roads I drive on; I don’t know. It quite rarely gives me a false positive, and fairly-rarely false negatives. (“False positive” meaning telling me that I’m departing my lane when I’m not, and “false negative” meaning failing to warn me when I really am departing from my lane.)

    I presume you’re referring to the “Steering Assist” feature. On my Prime at least, I concur that it doesn’t do much. (I have LDW set to high sensitivity, BTW.) It does steer me back into my lane if the lane is (at that point) fairly straight, and I’m drifting gradually toward the lane lines. Under those circumstances, it steers me back into my lane, at or slightly before I would have crossed into the adjacent lane. Beyond those limited underlying circumstances though, I haven’t seen “Steering Assist” do much at all.

    A while back, I test-drove a gen-2 Volt, and its equivalent function steered much more aggressively (which would be good in this case).


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  13. Tideland Prius

    Tideland Prius Moderator of the North
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    I still find it amusing that some can't wrap their heads around the fact that Toyota introduced TSS-P as a safety package to all cars. Yes for some cars like the Prius, it is a downgrade from LKA but it's a corporate decision to include all models with LDW as opposed to one specialized model (Prius) with LKA. LDW would have greater benefits because it would be in a larger number of models.

    Looking specifically at the Prius, is having a completed closed mind. Again, it sucks having a feature that is better than before (like when we moved to the Gen 3 and the 7" screen was actually a lower resolution than the Gen 2.5's 7" MFD. But the reason for that is similar to what w see now - it's cheaper to move to the same system that all other Toyotas are using. Toyota is reducing the cost for you, the consumer, to buy hybrid vehicles by looking into the parts bin of other Toyota models).
     
  14. MikeDee

    MikeDee Senior Member

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    I think you are ignoring the fact that LDA doesn't work that well. It's unreliable. I'd even say it's a defect in the vehicle that isn't being acknowledged by Toyota.


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    #114 MikeDee, Jun 26, 2018
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  15. Lee Jay

    Lee Jay Senior Member

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    It works just about exactly as they advertised it would.

     
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  16. MikeDee

    MikeDee Senior Member

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    No. I can go over the line and get no warning way too often. The assist function can hardly be felt (when it works) as well. Maybe Botts dots on California roads confuse it, don't know. Anyone else in California having trouble with LDA working properly?
     
    #116 MikeDee, Jun 26, 2018
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  17. wfolta

    wfolta Active Member

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    My LDA always warns me, including when I am purposely going over the line -- taking an exit lane, taking a cloverleaf too tightly or loosely, etc -- and I often feel oddness in the wheel when it's apparently pushing back. It also warns me when I remove my hands from the wheel, so I have not been able to see how well it does with zero input.

    So I don't understand when people says it gives no warning. Have you turned down the sensitivity, or turned it off (button on the steering wheel)? Not being condescending, just totally puzzled.
     
  18. ttait

    ttait Active Member

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    If the prime required unique hardware to implement true LKA, I might see the light of saving a few cents each on thousands of cars.
    But, I would venture to say that in this case, the difference is software only. And they already had the software. The Prime has more sensors than my 2010 ATP had. It can park itself, so it has good steering control. The camera is better, higher resolution. There is no reasonable excuse that I can come up with for the LKA removal, other than the lawyers scared them so much they refuse to listen to their customers. Not to mention they're trying to re-invent LKA as Lane Tracing.
     
  19. Lee Jay

    Lee Jay Senior Member

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    I just drove from Denver to Vegas to Anaheim to San Diego to Yuma to Flagstaff to Page and on back to Colorado, and noticed no difference in LDA performance anywhere, day or night.

    Your lack of imagination and inside knowledge doesn't mean no such reason exists. Software development, testing, and maintenance are far from free.

    Yeah...mine warns me too often.
     
    #119 Lee Jay, Jun 26, 2018
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  20. mr88cet

    mr88cet Senior Member

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    I absolutely agree, except that the Steering-Assistance part only barely works under extremely limited circumstances, to the point of being borderline useless. The LDW though, at least on my P.Prime on the roads I drive, works quite well, and exactly as advertised.

    Just checking: Are you using your turn signals?
     
    #120 mr88cet, Jun 26, 2018
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