Collision Avoidance System.

[Ming the Merciless]

Or he could have been wearing the wrong shoes

or the wrong trousers, if it was Wallace.

 

[Dogtrousers]

or the wrong trousers, if it was Wallace.

I think that overall this is probably the most likely explanation

 

[presta]

A few days ago I approached a tee junction to emerge onto a main road. I arrived at the give way line smartly, but not at daft speed and stopped at the line.

Travelling along the main road was newish Volvo Car, possibly a V90. My first thought was the driver massively over-reacted and slammed on pulling up to a halt resulting in the car behind him giving him a cheeky blast on the horn. The old fella driving gesticulated in my direction and suggested that I was the number 1 best driver he had seen that day. I gave him a wave and pulled out before he set off again which I don't think improved his day.

My first thought he was just overreacting and panicked, but pondering it, I began to wonder if the Volvo was fitted with some sort of collision avoidance system that stepped in?

Being someone who is rather parsimonious when it comes to cars, my vehicles are too old and basic and don't have such systems?

But I'm curious? Could these systems have caused this reaction by detecting my car. It very nearly resulted in a collision to the rear of the Volvo. The junctions is a bit odd in that it's quite wide where the give way line is, but the throat is narrow and people parkin the throat meaning I was approaching the give way line at more of an angle than usual.

I had a similar incident 10-15 years ago, before any auto braking, I was cycling up to this give way line, and deferring my braking so that I could slip in behind the approaching car without having to slow down. The driver thought I wasn't going to give way, did an emergency stop, and so I had to do the same.

Which I suppose begs the question if one could maliciously cause the system to activate on passing cars.

Wot, like this you mean?

I think the vehicle behind was a sprinter van, so possibly didn't have the braking performance of a new Volvo on emergency mode

I used to work with a guy who had an old Austin 7 with mechanical brakes, he said it was a PITA to drive in the rush hour because whenever he left himself enough room to stop, someone would always jump in and fill the gap. A good demonstration of Risk Compensation: the benefits of safety technology are always enjoyed as an increase in performance rather than a reduction in risk.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

It’s fab. Mine alerts me to pedestrians, cars or cyclists approaching from either side as I emerge from a space in a car park. It will stop the car if I don’t react to the alert.

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Ours has kicked in 3 times in 2.5 years.

Car stops dead with a hell of a noise, sounds like you have actually hit something!

Doesn't issue an alarm like the rear parking sensors do. It simply halts the car dead.

 

[Alex321]

Quite possibly if it wasn't deactivated. My mate has a kia ceed and entered a parking space at the same time another car entered a parking space in front of the one my mate was going into, both cars stopped as they detected wrongly a head on collision. One had to stop whilst the other parked up, they both laughed about it at the time, put my mate off his car till i showed him how to deactivate it. Newer 25 model year cars cannot be disabled. There was some talk of it included max speed limits.

By law, all new cars sold since July last year MUST have ISA (Intelligent Speed Assist), which automatically sets the speed limiter in your car to the road speed limit, as determined by a combination of sign recognition and GPS. That CAN be overridden, but will always set itself back on when the car is next started.

 

[oxoman]

Just a note on teslas, there collision avoidance system runs off cameras and not radar like most others. Therefore in bad conditions it's system is pants. Most manufacturers use radar and cameras for these systems. Radar for parking and collision system and cameras for lane and speed although some may be linked to GPS as well.

 

[Tom B]

Wot, like this you mean?

yea, sort of. I was thinking could pedestrians see a car with a sensitive system coming and sort of start to walk out triggering the system and sort of use it as a crossing system.

I used to work with a guy who had an old Austin 7 with mechanical brakes, he said it was a PITA to drive in the rush hour because whenever he left himself enough room to stop, someone would always jump in and fill the gap. A good demonstration of Risk Compensation: the benefits of safety technology are always enjoyed as an increase in performance rather than a reduction in risk.

Perhaps not risk compensation but Mrs B and I was only remarking how these days people seem to accelerate away far harder than they did a few years ago. Maybe using 80% of their cars ability as opposed to the gentle 30-40%. EVs seem to lead to this as of course full torque is available from pretty much 0mph so people just mush the pedal.

People seem to apply the same to braking with people nailing the brakes quite late as opposed to gently slowing down. Indeed someone was unhappy with me a few days ago as I either tend to gently roll to a halt or when I'm a faster road I get my bulk braking done early and gently roll or pull to a stop. it's a habit i got into when I had a van that suffered with warping disks. The idea being the heat has a chance to dissipate before stopping.

 

[glasgowcyclist]

By law, all new cars sold since July last year MUST have ISA (Intelligent Speed Assist), which automatically sets the speed limiter in your car to the road speed limit, as determined by a combination of sign recognition and GPS.

My car falls into that group and doesn't do that. If I were to exceed a posted limit it would sound a warning until the speed fell back within the limit.

Edit to add: I've just checked the car's system settings and assistance has been deselected in favour of a warning only. I've set it back to assist to see how it performs.

 

[Ian H]

I've only seen it once. I was in a moving motorway queue, a Tesla was easing into the lane behind me just as the queue slowed. I was keeping a wary eye on him when he braked violently. The involuntary head nod and alarmed glance in his mirror explained what had happened.

 

[lazybloke]

It’s fab. Mine alerts me to pedestrians, cars or cyclists approaching from either side as I emerge from a space in a car park. It will stop the car if I don’t react to the alert.

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Reversing into parking spaces is also a good idea.

 

[glasgowcyclist]

Reversing into parking spaces is also a good idea.

Yes, and it’s my preferred method.
(The collision avoidance works when driving forward too.)

 

[CXRAndy]

I'm trying to teach my child this at the moment (learning to drive), don't arrive at side junctions too fast. It spooks the oncoming driver, could also set off anti collision.

Arrive smoothly and slowly 👍

Whose at fault, you were a contributing factor and the following car behind was probably too close hence bip on the horn.

We all make mistakes from time to time

 

[Dogtrousers]

I've programmed my satnav to go bong if I exceed the limit. That's as techy as my car can go.

It still has a key (you know one of those pointy serrated metal things) to start it.

I used to have a satnav that did the Star Trek red alert whoop whoop but my current one is boring.

 

[T4tomo]

even my oldish volvo has that. It "city safety" activated once as I squeezed myself into a busy roundabout a bit quickly as I was close the the car I was squeezing behind (trying to leave a much room for the car I was squeezing in front of). It also fired off the other day when I think someone else's similar system triggered in a queue pulling away from some traffic lights when some entitled muppet thought that was a good place to execute a U turn into the station layby. We all brake sharply but I defo got some assistance from the car!