Emergency brake - Pre-collision from TSS-P

Weehah! Glad to hear it really does work!

That then is why I'm interested in defining a "quick glance" checklist of indicator lights, MFD actions, etc., so that, although I never rely upon them, I can be certain that these ADAS systems didn't accidentally get turned off.

 

How quick do you think it braked? and how far from the car in front did it come to a stop?

 

good to know these things work, thanks for the report!

 

That will be something that all MB drivers where scared many years ago when this was introduced back then....
How people behind you will react is something that you can't control.....Not all on the road are accident avoidance safe

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

I'm scared of someone rear ending me when my auto brake engages.

 

I am assuming the brake lights are activated when the car is panic stopped automatically. Wondering if the brake lights also come on when dynamic cruise is set and you are coming up upon a slow car which requires deceleration in the form of coasting or braking.

 

Braking, yes. Coasting, no.

 

It's a good thing, a very, very good thing.
I can't argue against much if any of the automated driver assist features that are becoming more and more common on automobiles as we slowly lurch towards Bethlehem and fully automated self driving vehicles.

But, I do think the story I'll get to tell the visiting school children as I sit in the Old Folks home, will be about how I use to DRIVE something called an automobile without:
An Automatic Transmission
Keyless entry and Push Button Starting
Air Bags.
Anti-Lock Brakes.
Cruise Control, regular and radar.
Pre-Collision self applying brakes.
Lane Keep Assist

The list will undoubtedly grow, and I'm probably missing a lot now.

While all these things are arguably nearly undeniably great.
I fear the self driving vehicle and reaching a tipping point where we ourselves no longer actually engage and "drive". Since I enjoy the action of driving, including the attention, and skill it takes to drive.

But it is an equation, where under the vast majority of situations, it becomes safer the more we remove the fallible human element and are able to hand over to computers and sensors.

Hopefully however there will always be an open road, and something WE actually drive.

 

Good for you. I was driving on the interstate about 65 mph on Monday morning and mine stopped as well. The only problem was there wasn't a car in front of me at all. The guy behind me wasn't amused I'm sure. About the time I had dropped to 45 mph I realized the car was freaking out and I cancelled the cruise control. So, moral of the story....great when it saves you, scary when it try's to kill you.

 

Just before the auto .. was there a foot on either pedal ?

 

Intersection: https://www.google.com/maps/@34.8767207,-86.6431752,18.3z?hl=en

I was headed north towards a curve to the left. Another north-south road intersected the head of curve and there was a car stopped on that road, stopped, pointed south. The TSS-P alerted as I passed it turning to the left about a pending, head on accident . . . except I continued through the curve, by-passing the stopped car, and no problem. A brief bleep, a warning flash, nothing to get excited about and exactly the behavior expected.

Sometimes there are 'false positives' which are generally OK with me.

Bob Wilson

 

Do you believe the situation would turn out any better in the rear if your autobrake doesn't engage and you smack the car in front first?

In multi-car chain reaction crashes, I thought the vehicles that retained clean front ends got better police and insurance reports for showing that they were paying some attention to traffic ahead.

 

True, but if the car brakes for you and you could easily avoid the car in front by turning the steering wheel with no car next to you, that would be the better option than getting rear ended.

 

Is it autobraking while you still have time for steering avoidance? If not, then there is no basis to complain.

Partial avoidance, as in turning a full square impact into an offset or side impact, is often worse because the car has less strength and crush zone cushion to address those aspects.

 

The steering wheel continues to work even in an automatic brake incident. So too does traction control. You always have the option to steer away from danger. But speculation about problems with this safety feature reminds me of:

• seat belts will drown you if you crash into a river or trap you in a burning car - don't use them
• air bags kill people - so disable them

I would be more impressed if you'll find and post accident reports showing automatic braking is causing more accidents than it prevents or mitigates. Let me give some examples:

• https://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/esv/esv20/07-0450-o.pdf - shows a 50% reduction in accident injury risk with automatic braking
  
• Front crash prevention cuts rear-enders - remember avoiding the front end collision often avoids a rear end collision of the car in front, "Systems with automatic braking reduce rear-end crashes by about 40 percent on average, while forward collision warning alone cuts them by 23 percent, the study found. The autobrake systems also greatly reduce injury crashes."
  
• https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.dot.gov/files/811521.pdf - a technical discuss of automatic braking systems and the false positives.

The steering wheel continues to work so drive around the problem. Of course more sophisticated systems like the Tesla autopilot may have that avoidance maneuver built-in. But for our affordable cars, TSS-P is a step up from the nut behind the wheel and it does not lock the steering during an automatic braking action.

Bob Wilson

 

There's the thing: if you maintain a generous following distance, you will have much more time to react, when there's a sudden/hard slowdown in front of you. Likely the car's emergency braking won't even kick in. And as you note: the cars behind were freaking out. They may or may not be able to stop as fast as you.

 

A friend complains that her lane departure warning doesn't work well when she needs it most, i.e. when it's dark or during a heavy rain. Is that true for this system as well?