Yep. ABS and low-speed braking have saved me from a couple of encounters, both mild and serious. Actually, it was the alert system that told me I was about to bump into the guy ahead of me, enabling me to brake before the system kicked in. ABS is a life-saver when some idiot tries to make a left turn in front of you with not enough room. Brake, swerve, cuss, and recover. Difficult without ABS.
I also love the back-up cameras, the lane alerts, the back-up alerts and all the other safety features on our Rogue.
My car has atrocious rear vision, or at least as it applies to backing up, and my latent twist-around-and-look averse neck and spine sure don’t help matters. The rear vision camera is high resolution and wide angled and has allowed me to see both pedestrians and approaching vehicles in parking lots and backing out of my driveway to the street.
Without it I would need a guide person or a devil-may-care attitude.
The usual intent is for drivers who have become distracted or sleepy. Certainly in my driving career I’ve noticed a significant number of vehicles that seem to drift in and out of their lanes. It’s meant to be an occasional reminder, not an auto-driving feature (in most vehicles. Automatic driving vehicles also use similar tech “all the time” as part of their function, but the “safety” one isn’t the same thing.)
As far as the OP: Not a “wreck” exactly, but the rear view camera’s ability to see the road beneath the bumper has prevented me from backing over at least one cat and a couple stupidly-placed parcels that were too low/centered to be visible from the rear and side mirrors when exiting the garage. I have also aborted lane changes when the blind-spot detectors shrieked at me, although I suspect the detectors were being over-cautious. I live in an place where wet ice is not uncommon, so ABS has kept me on the road a couple times, although I grew up in Minnesota, so I’m usually driving pretty carefully in such conditions, anyway.
no. what it does is when it sees you’re drifting over a lane market it’ll gently nudge the steering to keep you within the lane. I think some systems allow you to choose between “warn only” (via chime or steering wheel vibration) and “active assist.”
What the hell was that cop thinking? Just completely run a red light on a motorcycle? Idiot. Anyway, my cars are old, but I saw this video a couple of months ago. A Tesla is rear ended, and the car swerves itself to keep from smashing into the line of cars in front of it. Pretty neat. Tesla owner claims Autopilot made impressive maneuver caught on video to avoid crash | Electrek
I’m of two minds on the rear view cameras. On the one hand, they do make backing out of a spot easier, especially if you have a small car. I have a Civic, there’s a pickup or minivan next to me, I won’t have a chance of seeing someone (on foot or driving) approching me until I most of the way out of the spot*. OTOH, people are clearly getting too reliant on them. Twice now I’ve almost been hit. Both times it was because the person backing out was absolutely glued to the screen and had no concept of what was going on outside of what the camera was looking at. That makes it really dangerous to be next to the car where they’ll hit you when they cut the wheels.
*While I’m on that subject…I know that pedestrians have the right of way, I get it, but c’mon, if a car is backing out you know they can’t see you walking, just stop for 3 seconds until they finish backing up or notice you. Again, I know the pedestrian has the right of way, but it’s also the pedestrian that’s going to be relearning how to walk. That’s a high price to pay to make a point.
Still super annoying, I’ll make sure I avoid getting a car that has this “feature.” On twisty roads where there isn’t traffic the natural line through a turn is almost never where the lane is marked and I really prefer taking the overall safer course of minding physics over an arbitrary line of paint on the road. And if I’m so tired I can’t stay in a freeway lane I need to pull the hell over and nap, not assume the car will take over my responsibility to get where I’m going safely.
This sounds almost as irritating as the car that had the oh-so-helpful flashy up arrow on the dash to tell me when to shift gears. Yeah, some black tape took care of THAT.
If the warning wasn’t there, I might have changed lanes without looking, and there might have been a car there, and I might have continued without seeing it, and the driver of the other car may not have seen me and taken corrective actions (or honked) and there might have been an accident. And the driver wouldn’t have known that the accident would have occurred.
But that was hypothetical. I just got a car a couple of weeks ago and it only has the backup camera. Before that I have driven for over 40 years and the only two accidents that I’ve been in while driving was when I was stopped.
I can’t tell, but it looks like his blue lights were on and he wasn’t paying attention to cross traffic, just trying to get to where he was going. I’m not defending him, just suggesting it could have been the reason. He doesn’t even appear to look to his left.
Electronic stability control is frickin’ magic. Me, February, Mustang Ecoboost, 70 mph on SB I-275 near DTW. I see cars on the side of the road, which is odd. It’s 2°C, the roads are dry, and we just don’t get black ice in Michigan all that often. That day, we did have.
Within seconds of questioning why those other cars were on the side of the road, I started to lose control. I just knew that I was going to end up in the ditch, as I started sliding out of my lane. But nope, the car just kind of took over, straightened itself out, and pointed itself in the right direction.
Magic, I tell you.
(While ending up in the ditch isn’t a “wreck”, it’s probably embarrassing and you do need a wrecker to pull you out.)
Once I got Subaru on the phone ------ the loaner I had had two settings so to speak. “Level 1” would make a God-awful beep/ping if you came near the line; either center or edge. This was annoying as heck on city streets where you have parked cars and narrow streets and you are often near the line if not over. “Level 2” on the other hand, if you ignored the ping, would try to correct your line on its own. Believe me when I tell you that the first time it did it to me it solved any constipation issues I had for about the next month. And when a construction zone utilized a temporary roadway and it tried to force me into what it thought should be the roadway, I used some truly Pit-worthy language. It was at the far end of that fight that I pulled over and made my call.
What its for I don’t know for sure. I can see where it has some applications that turn out good. But as for me I would either turn it off or disable it. Subes is also connected to the turn signals; try to change lanes without signaling and the war was on depending on what level you are set for. That part I maybe like; I am notorious for using my signals but I feel few other drivers are. But its one of those things -------- I just wish someone realized that because we can make something doesn’t mean we should make it.
My car has both lane departure of the nature that it’ll steer for you (which you can override with some force) and anti-collision. However, unfortunately, the lane departure is dominant, so if some idiot with a plow on his oversized pickup decides he needs part of your lane too which makes you sensibly move right, the car will steer you back towards the obstacle you’re trying to avoid. Ditto when you try to give a pulled over police car some extra room as required by law and the lane departure decides you’re too close to the center line. :rolleyes:
The back-up camera and associated audible alert has saved me some parking lot fender benders. It has also warned me of approaching bicycles when backing out of my driveway.
My car has something called “rear cross traffic alert” which I believe may have prevented a crash as I was pulling my new car out of the dealer’s lot. I love that feature and would not own a car without it. When I rent a car without it, I need to keep reminding myself as I have become somewhat dependent on it.
I’m pretty sure most cars will let you turn off LKA in a persistent way; i.e. you don’t have to remember to turn it off every time you start the car. Unlike auto stop/start.
My car’s ABS brakes kicking in when I hit slippery road definitely helped me. They reacted before I would have, despite have a lot of winter driving experience. Probably would’ve rear ended the car in front of me.
Yeah, you can turn it off. And those systems aren’t designed to override direct steering inputs by the driver, either, so they won’t force you into an accident if you’re paying attention.
Auto start stop is just stupid though, IMO, especially if not defeatable. I work for GM now and of all the GM vehicles that have it, only in the trucks can it be turned off. In the Traverse and Equinox, you’re stuck with it. It just isn’t a very refined technology (lots of judder going on/off), saves laughably small amounts of gas and places additional wear on the starter, battery, alternator and engine. Oh yeah, but you’re not emitting exhaust for ten seconds. Whoopee.