Glad my 2017 doesn't have this stuff. I've survived so far without it.
Adaptive cruise control would be nice.v

Link- WSJ paywall
Technology cuts down on crashes but can also activate when there is no risk; ‘I was so scared’

By Ben Foldy
Aug. 27, 2019 5:30 am ET
Automatic emergency-braking systems that are promoted as a safety feature in vehicles don’t always work as intended and at times activate when there is no risk of a crash, drivers say.

Drivers have reported several hundred incidents to U.S. regulators in recent years of these brakes malfunctioning or not deploying properly, highlighting the challenges car makers face in introducing new technologies that automate more of a car’s driving functions.

The automatic braking features use cameras, sensors and radar to detect objects and can hit the brakes if the driver doesn’t act fast enough. Safety advocates say the technology has significantly reduced accidents and can save lives, and auto makers view such crash-avoidance systems as a critical part of developing autonomous cars.

But the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has fielded more than 400 individual complaints in the last three years from drivers of vehicles made by Nissan Motor Co. , Volkswagen AG , Honda Motor Co. and other major car manufacturers flagging auto-braking problems, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of the agency’s public database.

Most are from drivers saying they have had trouble with the automatic brakes deploying suddenly when there is no evidence of danger—at highway speeds, in some cases. Some drivers also reported braking systems failing to engage as expected in the presence of a threat.

Fourteen complaints involved a crash, with most of those drivers describing the car braking so suddenly it was rear-ended by a trailing vehicle. One driver reported losing control of the car when it unexpectedly hit the brakes at highway speed, causing it to spin out and crash into a guardrail.

No fatalities were reported in the complaints, but three indicated the crashes resulted in injury. Another 18 people reported being hurt by the abruptness of the car activating the brakes without a collision. Some drivers also complained the feature stopped their car unexpectedly over a railroad crossing.

Cynthia Walsh, the owner of a 2018 Nissan Rogue, said she was driving the sport-utility vehicle on the highway in February at 65 miles an hour when the car slammed on the brakes for no apparent reason.

“I was so scared,” Ms. Walsh said. “I was in tears.”

She took the vehicle to the dealership twice for fixes, but she said the problem persists. Now, she said, she is frightened to drive it.

NHTSA this spring began investigating the Rogue’s auto-braking feature after the Center for Auto Safety, a membership-based advocacy group, petitioned the agency to open a defect probe, citing 87 complaints of false braking activations. The center has argued the incidents are a safety risk and the vehicles should be recalled.

Nissan said it is cooperating with NHTSA and has identified problems with brakes improperly deploying in certain road conditions, such as railroad crossings, bridges and low-hanging traffic lights, on its 2017 and 2018 Nissan Rogue and Rogue Sport vehicles. The car company is asking owners to bring the affected vehicles to dealerships for a software fix. The action, which isn’t a recall but a voluntary customer-service campaign, covers more than half a million of the SUVs.

Nissan said Ms. Walsh’s vehicle received the recommended software update and it continues to work with her.

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Volkswagen said it fully cooperates with NHTSA on any query or investigation and works with dealers to better understand consumer complaints. Honda said it has been in contact with NHTSA regarding its auto-braking technology and there are currently no defects.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a group backed by car insurers, said in June that the rate of rear-end collisions was 50% lower for cars equipped with automatic braking. The group estimates the feature will prevent 28,000 crashes and 12,000 injuries by 2025.

NHTSA said auto braking can reduce the severity of crashes and help save lives, but warned the technology isn’t defined uniformly within the auto industry and the agency will closely monitor data sources for safety risks.

Often, the systems vary in both their capabilities and how they operate, and there is little standardization on what they are called, creating confusion among drivers.

“There is a ridiculous number—some 40 different names for automatic emergency braking,” said Greg Brannon, director of auto engineering at AAA. “It leads to a high degree of consumer confusion.”

Auto manufacturers have recalled nearly 180,000 vehicles in the U.S. since 2015 to fix issues with their automatic braking systems, according to the Center for Auto Safety, which is based in Washington.

The volume of complaints is notable for a new safety feature intended to prevent accidents, said Jason Levine, the center’s executive director.

Automatic emergency braking is among a number of new active-safety technologies emerging in newer cars that aim to help prevent crashes. The new technologies can also, for example, steer a car back into the lane if it drifts and alert drivers to cars passing in their blind spot.

Regulators have been pushing such technologies as a way to reduce traffic fatalities. Nearly all auto makers have pledged to make automatic-emergency braking standard across their lineups by 2022.

An estimated 44.5% of all 2018 model-year vehicles sold in the U.S.—about 7.6 million—were equipped with automatic emergency brakes, according to Wards Intelligence, a data analytics firm.

There is a learning curve for drivers. Many aren’t even aware their car has the technology, much less know if it is working correctly, industry analysts say.

Some automatic braking systems activate for pedestrians, while others engage only for other cars. Some try to avoid a collision entirely, while others aim only to slow the car and reduce the impact of a crash.

Auto makers say automatic braking mishaps are often the result of “false positives”—the vehicle’s computer getting confused by a nonthreatening object like an overhead sign or a shadow and triggering the brakes.

Calibrating the car’s detection software to be discerning enough to identify hazards but filter everything else out is a challenge, said Wayne Powell, vice president of electronic systems at Toyota Motor Corp. ’s North America division. Toyota now includes automatic braking on more than 90% of the cars it sells in the U.S.

“Getting it to not put on the brakes when it shouldn’t is a very, very hard problem,” Mr. Powell said. “If your car is putting on the brakes all the time unnecessarily, you won’t trust your car.”

Write to Ben Foldy at [email protected]

My latest cars are older than my previous cars for reasons.

I was test driving a car with AEB. We come up to an intersection and an ambulance is coming at us and making a right at the intersection we are slowly (20mph) pulling up to.
Unknown to me it activates when a siren is nearby. Even though the ambulance was turning. Slammed the brakes on and tossed the salesman’s coffee to the floorboards.

This is where I’m heading as well.

Simplicity > convenience and “safety”

My adaptive cruise brakes kick on when I’m passing a car hauler semi in full sun.  And the shadow is in my lane.

Does it every time. 2015 F150.

No idea why, but I’ve narrowed it down to specifically car haulers.  Specifically when the sun is causing the shade to be on my lane.

I now hug the rumble strip / yellow line to try to avoid it. Or turn off cruise.

Really?  

Year
Make
Model
Of vehicle with “siren activated brakes”....

I've seen dashcam video of that collision avoidance shit trying to send a car into a curb because someone cut it off. Driver had to fight it to avoid hitting the curb.

I'll operate my brakes myself, thanks.

Nissan prevented me from backing into a light pole.  Braked so goddamn hard I thought I DID hit the light pole.  

Those brakes locked up like the legs of my prom date.

Let’s see the video....

That is brilliant.

So you come up on an emergency vehicle with the siren on and the car just stops?

Because there could never be a situation where an emergency vehicle has their siren on and they want you to unass the area.

People don’t think that far ahead when they make up such stories.

7,600,000 cars sold in 2018 with automatic braking systems and ~140 complaints.  I'm not seeing an issue.

lol fucking A, imagine that the gross number of complaints go up when total sales go up.  What’s the percentage?  Has it been constant?  What are the full nature of the complaints?  In most cases inattentive drivers or people not realizing how the car generally reacts to situations is an issue.  I’ve had some autobrakes kick on when they shouldn’t but was a non issue because i paid attention and (in this case XC90 and F350) don’t freak out.

If it has 0.087% of the false trigger events as the front impact warning system on my wife's Honda, I wouldn't want the damn thing anywhere near a vehicle I drive.

I'm a HUGE fan of the adaptive cruise control on my '17 Accord.  Works damn well, and makes long trips a hell of a lot easier.  Used to be I loved to drive - the getting there was half the fun of it.  Now that I'm in my waning years, I just want to fucking get there already.  ACC keeps my foot off the pedal and keeps me from getting speeding tickets.

Not so much of a fan of the automatic braking system.  It works, but you have to know its limitations.  If I'm driving in an area where the road has lots of sharp turns, then it never fails that I'll be coming around a turn, there will be a car coming toward me, and because of the road the car thinks that the other car is in my path so it stomps on the brakes.  It'll even hit the brakes on a sharp turn if there's nothing ahead but bushes.  Luckily, I can just turn it the fuck off, so I do.

That's the thing about all these modern driving aids.  If you don't like them, just turn them right the fuck off.

this is where I am at, 45% of new cars sold in to 2018 had autobraking, so several million cars and there were a whopping 140 complaints. We are talking about less than 1/100 of a percent.

Last month I had a Nissan Rouge for a rental car when I was away on business.

It slammed on the brakes for no reason when I was going 60 MPH. It sucked.

I didnt cry tho

These systems should be designed to recognize motorcycles, made bullet proof, and then made mandatory.

You know you can turn it off, right?

I rented a brand new Mercedes in Europe recently.

It had a "safety" feature I can only describe as terrifying.
When the car would detect that you were moving out of your lane without the turn signal, it would shake the steering wheel violently.

At first I though I had hit something, but later figured it out.
We learned quickly how to disable it, but had to redo it every time the engine was off.

or you could, you know, not move out of your lane without signaling

Can't you just deactivate all that? I know on my ranger I can just turn it all off. It's on right now, and it has never auto braked.

I don't want that shit in my car

The same technology is now on Tractor/Trailers....Adaptive Cruise, Active Braking and Lane Keep.   It has its place but the software is still being fined tuned.    As a sales guy/trainer driver complaints of this system is now #1 complaint.

That’s dependent on what the car’s computer thinks is a lane.  I was driving a rental with acc and lane departure ‘correction’ in a rural area.  Going down steeper hills resulted in acc hitting the brakes.  The lack of white lines on the edge of the road confused the computer on lane departure - car was constantly trying to ‘return to lane’.

What worries me is when the day comes to where you can no longer turn them off.

My Mercedes GL350...I can't turn off Adaptive Cruise Control.   I can deactivate it by hitting the brakes.   But conventional cruise control is not available.

I would question the numbers. We had several hundred trusks shut down for months due to what they were calling "ghost braking" the truck would slam on the brakes for no discernable reason and come to a completystop on the freeway.
The one I drive now gets triggered every time I pass under a certain street sign. I have go very slow to keep it from happening.
These systems are not ready for prime time.

Don't get me wrong, I have this shit on my car, and I don't like it, but I think a lot of the complaints about it braking unexpectedly are probably due to people doing stupid shit like tailgating.

Gotta remember that driving anywhere other than the highway or the city never occured to these people

What is the rule on complaints? For every complaint there are how many people who said nothing and traded in their vehicle? How many people are still trying to work through it with the dealer? How many accidents are now blamed on the driver, how many unexplained fatalities?

The only time my active breaks have ever turned on was when a lady slammed on her breaks in front of me during bumper to bumper traffic.  I was very glad to have them as the reaction time of a computer is much faster than mine.

Yeah.  I also know it shouldn't go off at random times driving down a straight road with no approaching traffic.  At least it's a warning chime only and not locking the fucking brakes up.

My CX-5 has the automatic braking.  It will flash and beep an alert if you get "close" to having a problem, and it will hit the brakes if you get "really close" to having one.

I've had it beep unnecessarily maybe four times, and it braked unexpectedly once.
But not "for no reason."  In all these cases, I was coming up on a vehicle that was turning out of my path but just hadn't quite finished doing it yet, and I was going to skirt around them and keep going.  I was cutting it kinda close.  I was going to miss them, but it was only going to be a few inches, and there is probably a safety margin built into the calculations.  If anything, it's been a reminder to leave a little more margin when doing that.

I have not had an issue where a warning or braking happened out of the blue on a clear road.

If the trailing vehicle had automatic breaking too, we wouldn't have had this problem, would we?

Mine saved me once less than a month after I bought the car.  Someone was stopping in front of me, and I had glanced at the climate controls for a second, because the car was new, and I wasn't familiar with them yet.
I saw the car and hit the brake, but the automatic brake was quicker.  And I think it made the difference between a close call and a fender bender.

I hope you didn't brake anything by falling off the seat.

Electric boogaloo?

Just one of the many reasons I keep saying self driving vehicles are decades away from being ready for prime time.

@foxtrot08

If memory serves me correct the 2015 models had a software update or something for this issue. Most complaints were when passing a tanker truck.

Definitely doesn’t do it passing a tanker.

I gawk at tanker trucks all the time. I like to see what valves they use, what they’re hauling, what tires they’re running. Etc

Cliff notes: don’t buy a Nissan

My Accord does not (thank god) have adaptive cruise or automatic brakes.

It DOES have warning systems. The failure rate is depressingly high. There are certain items - like a freeway where they have repainted lines - that will routinely spoof the lane departure warning system. It's currently off due to construction on a freeway that I drive on daily where they've moved the lines... it picks up the old ones (that have been painted black).

The forward collision warning system is better, but it does spoof when someone cuts you off (even though they are accelerating away... I wouldn't want to slam on the brakes) or sometimes it picks up things that you aren't going to hit because you are turning. There's a freeway ramp it always goes nuts over the little < < < signs on. If you were going straight, they'd be a problem. But you aren't, so they aren't.

Adaptive Cruise... I've been in a bunch of them in rentals. My biggest problem is with the ones where you can't easily adjust the sensitivity so that you don't slow because of everything in visual range that it thinks is slower than you. Other than that, they ALL have the problem when someone cuts across lanes in front of you.

Some of you people and your bullshit stories lol.

and one day the gov't and your ins carrier will say you can keep your old dangerous car but you have to pay more to do so.

There is no doubt in my mind that all these issues will be completely irrelevant in less than 10 years.

We only need one AOA sensor on a Boeing, so why have redundancy in car sensors.