Lane Keep Assist comments

I use mine just about all the time and the only time it drops out for me is:

1. When I am in the right lane and hugging the most right lane marking then come across an exit. But if I hug the left lane marking of the right lane sometimes it does not drop out when I come across an exit.

2. When the lines are very very faded.

3. Sometimes when sunlight is in the front of me (this seems to be rare so far).

Otherwise it just works for me, if the 3 reasons I gave are not your problem at all (and no one else adds to this) then you may have a problem with yours and a good Toyota dealer may be needed for you.

Good Luck and keep us posted
Thanks
Don

 

..."greatly reduces driver fatigue"..."makes for a relaxing drive"...scares me! Sounds like you guys might get too relaxed and start falling asleep at the wheel!!!!

I can see the headlines now:

SILENT RUNNING PRIUS RUNS OVER TARGET SHOPPER WHILE DRIVER SLEEPS AT THE WHEEL (Film at 11:00)

 

I have used mine quite a bit and it drops out from time to time but I can almost always see the reason, faded lane markers, lane markers missing, etc. But that's in the day time.

It works a lot better in the day time than it does at night, sometimes at night it will work with the lights on bright but not when they are on dim. One time at night it even picked out the wrong markers, instead of the right side of the right lane and the center marker it picked out the right side of the right lane and the left side of the left lane. I wondered why the car kept wanting to pull to the left until I realized it wanted me to drive down the middle of both lanes straddling the center markers. I forgive it for that though, they had painted the outside lines with super reflective paint and the center marker was the old non-reflective paint. Now I usually just turn it off at night.

Anyway I kind of like the thing. Some roads it needs to be turned off but most of the time, in daylight, it works pretty good.

Ttait I think there may possibly be a problem with yours, it should work better than you describe. Maybe your camera needs to be aligned or something, I think I would take it in.

 

I am aware that it occasionally drops out when one of the lane markers of the lane I'm in drops away when my lane is merging with the neighboring lane from two lanes into one lane. I've also seen it drop out or get confused when a paving seam appears to be taken as a lane marker.
I've also noticed that the whole system is quite gentle. I wouldn''t describe it as "steering" my car, rather I'd say it's very subtly "guiding" my car. You still have to actively steer yourself into curves but the system will hold you in the correct turning circle, rather like fine-tuning trim in an airplane or rudder trim in a boat.
Stu

 

Here's Lane Keep Assist in action.




it follows the line real well


[ame="http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=2e7_1250527767"]LiveLeak.com - Highway Construction Crash[/ame]

 

The number of caveats under which LKA doesn't work or becomes
downright unsafe goes on for an entire page in the owner's manual.
Machine vision is a hard problem -- the AI community has been
working on it for years and about the only situation it becomes
really reliable is under precisely controlled conditions, like
factory lines with consistent lighting and small ranges of expected
parts sizes, etc. Despite the software community's best efforts,
road conditions are FAR too variable to place any real confidence
in a system like this, and even if it "works well" in near-perfect
conditions it will only breed fatal levels of complacency and more
room for driver distraction.
.
We'll see how long it takes for those headlines to roll in.
.
_H*

 

Agreed on both counts.

One other thing to consider: I have noticed a higher failure rate when driving into or on a very close reach to the sun as it is low in the sky -- in other words, early morning or just before dusk.

 

um, no, you better look again:

1) It's not "lane assist" that keeps you from crashing into construction baracades ... that would be "collision avoidance"

2) Have a look at the victim's car in stop action:
It's not even a Prius ... if the driver WOULD have had a package V. Prius ... he'd still be alive.

 

it was just a little humor.

please don't anal-ize

 

LKA is a real life-saver for me. See, I go out partying and drinking every night and one more DUI will put me in prison! So thanks, Toyota! Now I can drink more and drive more. Your thoughts are appreciated.

 

Ttait,

I just wanted to quote this for posterity.

Now...:focus:

As for me, I deliberated a great deal about the AT package when I ordered my V. In the end, out of all four items which come with that, there was only one which interested me (and another I hoped I never needed to experience), so I took a pass. Now, if the DRCC were available as a stand-alone, I'd be all over that.

 

I think a lot of people on this site have negative opinions about LKA and DRCC who have never used them, or maybe just tried them briefly. How many of us who actually own a car that has them and have put in few thousand miles using these systems think they are unsafe?

I will admit that some people who buy a fairly expensive option may want to defend it even if it's not very good just because they own it. I assure you I am not one of those, I will not hesitate to criticize anything about the Prius especially if it might be unsafe.

After 6000+ miles I see nothing unsafe about either LKA or DRCC, in fact I think quite the opposite is true. With either system I believe the worse thing it is going to do to you is turn itself off, and if that happens you will be no worse off than if you didn't have it to start with.

 

I find LKA to be just that, an "ASSIST". In no way does it act as an autopilot. It does not relieve you one iota from concentrating on where you want your car to go. It doesn't actualy steer the car, it only makes it subtly easier for the human driver to stay on track. Should you drift out of your lane it will provide warning feedback but the driver needs to apply the correction.

DRCC, on the other hand, is a god-send! For me, it alone was worth the price for the AT package. I drive on I-66 into D.C. from northern Virginia and, unless I have to slow down below 25 mph, I can keep my feet off the brake or accelerator. It's uncanny watching it automatically drop or raise your speed by 1 or 2 mph to maintain distance behind the vehicle ahead. Studies have shown that if more cars were equipped with DRCC, traffic would flow more evenly with fewer clogging backups. Having driven with it for over three months, I'm now hesitant to drive my other car which has a standard cruise control.

Another part of the AT package, the Parking Assist, is the one function I would be happy to do without. True, it's a "wow!" inducer when you show it to friends but if you have no trouble shoe-horning yourself into a tight parking spot, the Parking Assist will be of no use to you. It can only do its thing if it can get your car from the street to the parking space in one back-up. When it's able to rock my car into a tight spot, then I'll be impressed!

Stu

 

I love my prius iv and just about the only one thing i want on top of that is DRCC. I drove a toyota mini van that has DRCC from LA to SF. I noticed a huge difference in how it makes driving easier and I definitely would say safer because I don't get tired as easily. If iv and v is priced similarly, i might have chosen with the v. but solar is also too nice to give up. arg

 

Close! The LKA function is an "assist" that will not work in a hands-off world. Still, once you are above about 45 (I forget the exact speed), then if you start to cross a line, not only will you hear the warning signal, but the LKA will give a steering correction to keep the car from crossing to another lane. If you do not center the car on the lane, the correction will bounce you over to the other side. The problem with this is clear: If the driver doesn't apply real pressure to the steering wheel, the car will "bounce" from one side of the lane to the next. This certainly is effective at keeping the driver's hands on the wheel.

I just might agree on this one, though I really wanted the LKA for safety (I wanted extra precautions against fading attention or "nodding off" issues). It turns out the DRCC is a standout performer. The best thing is that it turns a 7- or 8-hour drive into something that doesn't wear me out.

I'm learning more about the automated parking feature. It looks to me as though it may have more application than I anticipated. I never used it the first four months of ownership, but I now am starting to test it out.