To hate that the car decides how to drive?

[Pouffeycat]

I got a new car last month. I have been driving to work and back and not much more. But I have noticed that the steering has been pulling at certain points. I thought maybe it wasn't aligned properly...
It pings at me if I am not in the centre of a marked lane.
Last night it slammed the brakes on when something ran over the road in the dark.
I live rurally.
I don't like not being in charge of the car.
I have been driving for 30 years and have never had any accidents.
I feel unsafe in this thing.
If someone had been behind me last night in a non smug car,there would have been an accident. I wasn't being safe, because the car took over!
Looking online it seems they make it hard to turn the systems off.
Am I just a dinosaur that needs to get with the technology?

I live rurally and the LKA has a nasty habit when driving down narrow 2 way country lanes of suddenly trying to throw me under the milk tanker coming the other way. LKA is fine on motorways and in urban environments but it's lethal in the countryside!

First question to any car dealer is “do I have to have all of the safety equipment?” If yes then “how do I turn it ALL off?”.

We have a car that has zero safety equipment. Well, not unless you count steering and brakes. No seatbelts, airbags, roof…

I sometimes feel a little vulnerable.

I think this will create such bad drivers in the future (as if they're not already bad enough), as new cars are basically doing the thinking for people

Common theme here seems to be people buying brand new cars and their salesperson not taking the time to do a proper handover.

100%

I mean the electronic stuff.

I fitted a rollbar and 5 point harnesses to the sports car (it’s a track car as well as a road car). That’s going to keep me safe at speed. I don’t need a car doing the thinking for me.

100%

Already see it - grey/silver cars on motorways in torrential rain with just DRLs on. They’re practically invisible from behind.

I'm currently reading the 300 page plus manual.
Honestly I think I would need lessons to understand all the gubbings that it goes on about.
Lane assist,travel assist. Then when both are in operation.
The lane assist sounds like the problem. The car is looking for a line on the left... rurally that's not going to happen. A centre line is a rare thing.
If it detecting mud tracks,anything could happen!
Lane assist is being turned off.

That's true. DH spent a couple of hours in his car to learn about what is does and how to operate it. I can't drive it because I don't even know how to start it!

I think you are right about country driving tbh it does sound like it needs to be off for that.

I’ve just thought of something…….OK here in the UK we have right-hand drive cars. What happens if we take these cars with lane assist over to mainland Europe on the ferries or on the Eurotunnel….will the cars still try to veer to the left unless you turn the lane assist off? Or will they automatically veer towards the right?

We’re driving down to Italy this Summer and it will be interesting to see what happens (or not)

@Pinotpleasure

They work both left and right in the uk so will be the same anywhere else

My Lane assist only comes on if i fail to use my indicators and its very easy to over ride I really like it now I'm used to it and I think it's improved my driving.

Going slightly off-topic but still connected to a discussion about technology in cars:

My spouse bought a new Kia Sportage last week, a plug-in hybrid (therefore automatic transmission) with all the ‘bells and whistles’.

It has not just the regular ‘cruise control’ but the ‘Adaptive Cruise Control’. You set the cruise control to be say, 2 or 3 car lengths behind the car in front of you and if that car slows down (or speeds up) then your car follows suit. Your will brake automatically when it senses that the car in front is braking.

We went out in the car and on a local dual carriage way my husband set the ACC to 62mph. This road merges into one lane and a couple of miles ahead there is a major roundabout. Anyway, I was in the passenger seat and as we came to the brow of the hill where the lanes merge, I could see ahead that there was a line of cars all with their brake lights on and slowing down. Now I would immediately Brake gently myself if I was driving and I could see that his foot was nowhere near the brake pedal. I said ‘you need to brake’ and he said ‘the car is doing it’. Well, I couldn’t sense that the car was braking at all (although it apparently was). I was terrified tbh. I just don’t trust it and have asked him to only ever use it with me in the car if we are on a motorway on a long distance drive (although would still prefer it not to be on).

We had Adaptive Cruise Control on our Subaru Outback when we lived in New Jersey (again I never used it) but the cameras were either side of the interior rear-view mirror. On the Kia the cameras are outside the car, I guess somewhere near the front grille or headlights. Sometimes when we reverse the car into our awkwardly shaped driveway the reversing camera is fogged up with mud or just ‘foggy’ if it’s a rainy day. How can I trust an ACC camera if it may get fogged up due to mud/fog/rain? (Answer….I just can’t).

I don’t know about anyone else’s car but my AEB only kicks in when it thinks you’re on a collision course with a pedestrian. It wouldn’t activate for a squirrel.

There are still situations where it’s irritating though. I have to take a very sharp bend on the way to work. If there’s a pedestrian on the pavement at a certain point on the bend, the AEB will kick in - even though I’m still mid-steer and won’t be colliding with the pedestrian.

You have a point about seatbelts. When seatbelts came in, death rates of car occupants went down but death rates of pedestrians and cyclists went up. People drive less carefully whether feel safer. Putting a large spike in the centre of the steering wheel would decrease the number of accidents and be beneficial for passengers and other road users, although not for the drivers!

Surely you can fit seatbelts of some sort, perhaps harnesses? I think you are mad not to if you are driving on a public road. The rest of the stuff is probably less beneficial for driving at slower speeds.

Lane assist should be easily toggled on or off. It's only really meant to be used on motorways and dual carriageways, since it uses computer vision to track road markings and avoid people veering into other lanes.

AEB is something that is being mandated by EU legislation for future cars, and is one of the reasons the base price of cars is steadily rising now. The likes of seatbelts, ABS, traction control and airbags will now be complemented by AEB and other situational awareness tech, as well as pedestrian airbags.

In the end, none of this offsets being an aware and responsible driver. You already see people becoming less capable in examples such as autolights meaning people don't put lights on when foggy or raining (the sensors still detect enough light, but not visibility issues), or those unable to back up without a camera, forgetting mirrors and their neck swivelling are a thing.

I’ve only ever known of two cars that behave like this one was called Kitt and the other was called Christine.
I’d get rid of it very quickly indeed if I were you it sounds possessed.

I have them all switched off including automatic lights. Hate that so many people are now braindead drivers relying on the gizmos. The number who don't think to turn lights on according to weather conditions drives me mad.
I drive a lot for work and am convinced the standard of driving is far worse than it used to be and don't get me started on people who have no idea of the width of their cars or/and stick in middle lane on motorway.

Assisted cruise control does not use the same camera's, it uses radar sensors so it is not affected the way you think it is.

If the system runs into detection issues it will disable adaptive cruise control and inform you.

May be technology is a bit more advanced than you give it for.

I've recently test driven 6 new cars and I found it really interesting to see that the dealers switch off a load of these safety features before you test drive. They didn't turn off all new features, just the irritating ones. Fun ones like one pedal driving were left on.

I've now ordered a new car and will probably have a go at getting used to safety features, particularly if my driving might improve.

I will probably turn off the thing where cameras spot speed limit signs and then warn you about the speed limit. I found that they regularly missed signs, so weren't at all reliable.

Lane assist is probably fine if you’re driving on mainly a roads or motorways but I drive on rural roads where it constantly pulls you into the side. Last straw for me was going round a tight bend, cyclist on my side, no time to indicate and it nearly pulled me straight into them. Now it gets disabled every journey.
It’s a pain in the arse though because even if you stop the car for a second you have to go through turning it off again.
I would NEVER cycle on a rural road now that cars have lane assist, it’s so incredibly dangerous for them.

Over reliance on this technology is literally making the roads less safe, not more. There's a reason the most braindead and often killed drivers using PCs on wheels are Tesla drivers.

YANBU. There's a section of road near us with semi permanent roadworks where the new lines and the old lines are still visible. The new lines cross over the old ones as the lanes narrow to make room for the works on the left.

It would be wrong to indicate as you cross the old lines because you're following the current lanes but our car tried to swerve us back into the old lane (essentially into the barrier) because it thought we were drifting.

It was not going to be an accident because I was holding onto the steering wheel firmly, but it was bloody unnerving to feel the car trying to steer me into a wall. Potentially the roadworks people are at fault for not properly blocking the old lines out, but surely the car companies shouldn't be assuming that road markings are always 100% accurate?!