Autonomous braking systems.

[Brian Kirby]

In truth, I'm not sure to what extent, if any, these systems have found their way onto motorhomes, but as I have recently discovered they are a) fairly common on post 2020 (maybe a little earlier) cars, and b) unreliable.  So, apologies if this is judged off topic, but I think it important that folk know.

The systems, under varying names, are activated when what are claimed to be forward looking radar transmitters detect an object on the carriageway, be that a vehicle or a pedestrian, and calculate that there is a danger of collision.  They then apply the brakes to avoid the collision.

The problem, as I discovered Tuesday this week, is that they sometimes apply the brake when there is no visible obstruction of whatever kind on the carriageway.  Should this happen, the vehicle emits a loud internal warning and simultaneously applies full emergency braking.

For instance, I was driving on a local, urban, 30MPH road, with a completely clear pavement on the near side, an orderly file of relatively slow moving traffic on the opposite carriageway, no traffic ahead, none (thankfully!) behind, and no vehicles stationary waiting to turn onto, or off, the road.  I had my right foot on the accelerator sufficient to maintain a steady 30 MPH, and the left foot on the floor, in gear, both hands on the steering wheel.

The peace was abruptly shattered by a loud alarm while, as above, full emergency braking was applied with locking wheels bringing the car to an extremely abrupt standstill!  No warning, just a dead stop.  So abrupt, in fact, that only the seatbelt prevented me being thrown forward onto the steering wheel!  Had there been following traffic, especially an HGV, I think I would have been very lucky not to have been back-ended!

Composure somewhat regained, I was able to re-start the engine and complete my journey with no further incidence of this fault.   Having got back home I started looking around the internet to see if this was a one-off, or a known problem.  It transpires that it is, indeed, a quite widely recognised defect, but one that is only known about by those who have experienced it - and of course the franchised workshops who customers turn to for cure - apparently without success.  The dealer from which we bought our car admitted they had had one or two cars back as a result, but had no remedy from the manufacturer to apply.

I also spoke to the service departments of the four local brand franchises for the manufacturing group concerned, and all were aware of the defect, one quipping that cars stopped for blowing crisp packets, and another for bumblebees!  🙂 

I have notified the manufacturer that they should issue a recall to deactivate these systems until they can make them reliable, and I have notified DVSA that I regard this as a sufficiently serious defect to warrant requiring all manufacturers to at least deactivate these systems until they can be made reliable and free from random activation.

So be warned, especially if they begin to appear on motorhomes, but even if you're buying a new car, and make sure to interrogate the dealers on whether the vehicles they are selling have such systems installed.

I have just notified the dealer who supplied ours that I am entitled under the Consumer Rights Act to return the car for a full refund unless he can offer a manufacturer backed permanent remedy within the next two weeks.  I'm not holding my breath on that score, but the really galling thing is that we both like the car, and had put considerable effort into selecting it.

Funny old world, ain't it?  😠

Edited September 27, 2023 by Brian Kirby

[Nick the wanderer]

Hi, 

well re the HGV they have been fitted to those for quite a few years. I hated them but you were able to turn them off, we were advised against it in incase of accident etc, but anyway the HGV driver would be experiencing the same feeling as you, being gripped by the seatbelt and everything else in the cab heading toward the windscreen!

[laimeduck]

By and large I do not consider this sort of technology either an advantage or safe. The nearest analogy I can suggest is the superb example of Captain Sulenberger "Sully" landing his passenger jet in the Hudson River after a catastrophic bird strike. Had he not made the human decisions he did and allowed the plane's systems to take over, it was likely that at the outcome would have been many deaths rather than none.

KISS!! Keep it simple, stupid!

Jeremy

Edited September 27, 2023 by laimeduck

[John52]

I was regretting not waiting for a new Ducato with all these options available until I read this thread.

The only experience i have of this is the factory fitted reversing sensors on my 2 year old Ducato which beep when I am reversing past something at the side of the van I am in no danger of hitting.

[John52]

10 hours ago, laimeduck said:

By and large I do not consider this sort of technology either an advantage or safe.

Depends on the driver I suppose

If the driver can be relied upon to brake when necessary I would agree

But as long as there are drivers looking are their mobile phones or whatever instead of the road.....

[laimeduck]

1 hour ago, John52 said:

Depends on the driver I suppose

If the driver can be relied upon to brake when necessary I would agree

But as long as there are drivers looking are their mobile phones or whatever instead of the road.....

Or driving 6' away from the car infront at 70mph? Would the technology deal with that? You can't invent stuff to deal with all stupid!

Jeremy

[david lloyd]

There are several ‘safety’ systems on our one year old MG4 that I would rather be without. The first is the collision avoidance Brian describes. Although it has not, as yet, activated without sufficient reason it does activate in what I consider unnecessary circumstances. Often this is way too soon as I am following (moving) traffic and it is quite possible that a following driver reading the road ahead would certainly not expect me to be braking to a standstill.

Next is the lane control feature which pulls the steering rather fiercely back to the centre line and can easily catch the unwary off guard perhaps over correcting as a result.

A smaller but nevertheless annoying feature is the speed limit indicator which can often be displaying an incorrect speed limit. I have come to ignore this completely as I doubt it would a sufficiently robust defence if I were penalised for inadvertently speeding.

As for the development of driverless vehicles, well………

David

[colin]

2 hours ago, david lloyd said:

There are several ‘safety’ systems on our one year old MG4 that I would rather be without. The first is the collision avoidance Brian describes. Although it has not, as yet, activated without sufficient reason it does activate in what I consider unnecessary circumstances. Often this is way too soon as I am following (moving) traffic and it is quite possible that a following driver reading the road ahead would certainly not expect me to be braking to a standstill.

Next is the lane control feature which pulls the steering rather fiercely back to the centre line and can easily catch the unwary off guard perhaps over correcting as a result.

A smaller but nevertheless annoying feature is the speed limit indicator which can often be displaying an incorrect speed limit. I have come to ignore this completely as I doubt it would a sufficiently robust defence if I were penalised for inadvertently speeding.

As for the development of driverless vehicles, well………

David

On Suzuki's the speed limit display is taken from a camera of speed limit sign, if it misses that an incorrect speed will be displayed.

[Derek Uzzell]

The latest Ducatos can have this type of 'driver assistance' feature

https://www.motorhomefun.co.uk/forum/threads/ducato-adas-camera-faults.274545/

For cars marketed in Europe, the more safety-related 'driver assistance' features, the higher the NCAP rating and (generally) the more incomprehensible and irritating the car becomes for the average driver. I've yet to meet anyone who likes the lane-keeping feature and everyone I've spoken to about it has admitted to switching it off if the car's software allows this. (Snag is that it then switches itself back on after the car's motor is turned off!)

My Hyundai i20's entertaining speed-limit warning system works pretty well and can be 'turned down' to a level that doesn't intrude unduly, but owners of the latest Hyundai i10 models have reported that their cars' equivalent system cannot recognise the UK's national-speed-limit-applies road sign and Hyundai dealerships cannot offer a fix.

[Brian Kirby]

I was amazed to read in Nick's post above that these under-developed AEB systems are also being fitted to HGVs!

They have seemingly been accepted as "safe", and therefore "good", for installation in all vehicles on that basis alone.

It Seems Euro NCAP and Australian NCAP carried out a joint evaluation (based on I know not what), and concluded that they would prevent up to 30% or so of frontal impact accidents, and so would be a high-yielding safety feature to incorporate into vehicles, saving numerous deaths and injuries.  In an ideal world, with AEB systems that reliably work, and neither register false negatives nor positives, yes, excellent.

What doesn't seem to have been taken into account is that one person's frontal impact is frequently another person's rear impact so, if the false positive I experienced is typical, which it seems it was, there are now a growing number of vehicles on roads that are at significantly higher risk of rear impact than hitherto!  Verily, the Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away!  🙂 

Were all cars so equipped, I assume the false negative effect would be cancelled out by the AEB on any following vehicle coping adequately when the vehicle in front suddenly and inexplicably stops, and so on back down the traffic stream.  Except that present systems cannot deal with the effect on braking distances of loose, wet, or slippery, road surfaces.

It seems to be a balance of harms argument.  More people are killed and injured during frontal impacts than are killed and injured during rear impacts, so the overall effect is beneficial - but 30%?  Really?

I'd favour a moratorium, during which present systems are de-activated until they are adequately de-bugged and reliable, at which point they can be reactivated.  Apparently, the cost of the systems is presently about £40, so hardly significant at today's prices.

I agree about "lane assist".  I'd decided that was going to be turned off by the time I'd driven the car from the dealer to home!

Ideal situation?  Instead of including these gizmos with "active" as the default setting, include them with "inactive" as the default, and leave the decision to activate to the driver.  If you want it and like it, turn it on, if you don't, go in peace!  🙂  If some refuse to activate them, and they're as good as is claimed, the refuseniks will gradually join the Darwin club by removing their faulty genes from human gene pool!  How long can that take?  😄 

In the meantime, if buying any vehicle manufactured since around 2018, just make sure you check carefully what passive safety systems are installed, and whether you can turn off the ones you don't want/like.

[stevec176]

My brother in law recently purchased a new electric car, all singing, all dancing, and it's supposedly ready to go fully autonomous . The only slight niggle he has is that when he's got cruise control on the system will adjust his speed to keep a safe distance between him and the car in front, even down to stop. This is fine except that as the car in front moves away so his car moves forward too which at a junction or roundabout isn't the best option as its not checking for traffic coming from the side and will take you into the traffic, ouch.

[crocs]

21 hours ago, stevec176 said:

My brother in law recently purchased a new electric car, all singing, all dancing, and it's supposedly ready to go fully autonomous . The only slight niggle he has is that when he's got cruise control on the system will adjust his speed to keep a safe distance between him and the car in front, even down to stop. This is fine except that as the car in front moves away so his car moves forward too which at a junction or roundabout isn't the best option as its not checking for traffic coming from the side and will take you into the traffic, ouch.

That's where the Mk1 brain needs to kick in.

[crocs]

On 28/09/2023 at 18:41, Brian Kirby said:

I was amazed to read in Nick's post above that these under-developed AEB systems are also being fitted to HGVs!

They have seemingly been accepted as "safe", and therefore "good", for installation in all vehicles on that basis alone.

It Seems Euro NCAP and Australian NCAP carried out a joint evaluation (based on I know not what), and concluded that they would prevent up to 30% or so of frontal impact accidents, and so would be a high-yielding safety feature to incorporate into vehicles, saving numerous deaths and injuries.  In an ideal world, with AEB systems that reliably work, and neither register false negatives nor positives, yes, excellent.

What doesn't seem to have been taken into account is that one person's frontal impact is frequently another person's rear impact so, if the false positive I experienced is typical, which it seems it was, there are now a growing number of vehicles on roads that are at significantly higher risk of rear impact than hitherto!  Verily, the Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away!  🙂 

Were all cars so equipped, I assume the false negative effect would be cancelled out by the AEB on any following vehicle coping adequately when the vehicle in front suddenly and inexplicably stops, and so on back down the traffic stream.  Except that present systems cannot deal with the effect on braking distances of loose, wet, or slippery, road surfaces.

It seems to be a balance of harms argument.  More people are killed and injured during frontal impacts than are killed and injured during rear impacts, so the overall effect is beneficial - but 30%?  Really?

I'd favour a moratorium, during which present systems are de-activated until they are adequately de-bugged and reliable, at which point they can be reactivated.  Apparently, the cost of the systems is presently about £40, so hardly significant at today's prices.

I agree about "lane assist".  I'd decided that was going to be turned off by the time I'd driven the car from the dealer to home!

Ideal situation?  Instead of including these gizmos with "active" as the default setting, include them with "inactive" as the default, and leave the decision to activate to the driver.  If you want it and like it, turn it on, if you don't, go in peace!  🙂  If some refuse to activate them, and they're as good as is claimed, the refuseniks will gradually join the Darwin club by removing their faulty genes from human gene pool!  How long can that take?  😄 

In the meantime, if buying any vehicle manufactured since around 2018, just make sure you check carefully what passive safety systems are installed, and whether you can turn off the ones you don't want/like.

What model car was this?

[colin]

1 hour ago, crocs said:

What model car was this?

As Brian didn't like the lane assist I'd guess a MG4.

[Derek Uzzell]

Brian's car is a current-model Skoda Fabia.

As this 2017 Skoda forum thread shows, Fabias have been fitted with an automatic emergency braking system for several years.

https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/438704-automatic-brake-activation/

 

[Brian Kirby]

20 minutes ago, Derek Uzzell said:

Brian's car is a current=model Skoda Fabia.

As this 2017 Skoda forum thread shows, Fabias have been fitted with an automatic emergency braking system for several years.

https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/438704-automatic-brake-activation/

 

I had expressly avoided "naming and shaming" for three reasons.

First, because I had thought that doing so would probably result in the string being removed by Warners, to eliminate the possibility of legal action by the individual manufacturer or its parent company.

Second, because it seems that, following EuroNCAP's blanket approval of Autonomous, or Automatic, Braking systems, they seem to have become the default safety technology for inclusion in almost, if not actually all, new vehicles.  I hadn't realised until I saw Nick's post that this found its way into HGVs, although I had become aware during my "AEB research" that they were now being included on light vans - hence my OP mentioning motorhomes, most of which are light van based.

The third reason was that, bearing in mind their growing ubiquity, and that this problem of random "phantom" emergency braking appears to afflict almost all makes/brands, and most models within those makes/brands, it would be unreasonable, and to an extent misleading, to attach the problem to a single car make and/or model, when a bit of internet hunting reveals that this specific malfunction has arisen across so wide a range of makes and models, including at least one premium electric car brand.

Clearly it is not the case that all recent vehicles so equipped suffer this particular fault.  Were that so there would be uproar!  But it does seem that pretty much any individual vehicle that is so equipped, of whatever make or model, can exhibit the fault.  It seems it is an uncommon, but persistent, random fault in the functioning of what is supposed to be a "fail safe" remedy for driver error when approaching vehicles, objects, people, or animals.  So whereas most vehicles with AEB systems seem unafflicted, those that are afflicted suffer multiple instances that the franchised workshops flounder to remedy.

It is supposed first to audibly warn, and then intervene by applying braking, when the speed of approach suggests that the driver is unaware of the danger.  What it is emphatically not supposed to do is summarily execute a full emergency stop without cause or warning!  That merely creates a different danger.

At least one European manufacturer has been the the subject of a US class action for just this fault.  Some others have vehicles they now drive with trepidation, because they have suffered several of these unpredictable "phantom" emergency stops.

In its present form AEB does not take account of road conditions, apparently being modelled around a well maintained vehicle, with good, properly inflated tyres, driven on a smooth, dry, road.

The idea and the intention is good.  If it can be made reliable, it will be an undoubted life saver.  But introducing it onto public roads in its present, buggy, form is, I think, premature, unwise, and dangerous.

[crocs]

Must have been quite a scary moment and could easily have been worse.

I have to admit that my cars have had this feature for many years without ever coming across this issue. In fact, my new Range Rover bought last year has an Adaptive Cruise Control (mentioned in the thread) and I find it mind-boggling in its efficiency. But you still need to be 'present' to avoid situations like the road junction mentioned.

And I will not, repeat NOT, dredge up any of the old Skoda jokes especially, as Brian said, it is not unique to Skoda.

[Brian Kirby]

1 hour ago, crocs said:

1  Must have been quite a scary moment and could easily have been worse.

............................................................

2  And I will not, repeat NOT, dredge up any of the old Skoda jokes especially, as Brian said, it is not unique to Skoda.

1  Just totally bewildering, really, rather than frightening.  At first I thought it was some sort of catastrophic mechanical failure, engine seizure or whatever, so I only got to being scared once I'd realised what had, actually, happened, and what the consequences might have been had there been following traffic - especially anything big - and what might yet happen.  After all, if it could do it once?

2  Definition of impossible?  A Skoda at the top of a hill.  🙂 

But the present vehicle is actually a Czech manufactured VW Polo with a different skin.  As is the Seat Ibiza (though made in Italy), and the Audi A1.

But Others in the same "supermini" class, for example Renault Clio and Ford Fiesta, etc. also sport AEB systems.

Edited September 30, 2023 by Brian Kirby

[Nick the wanderer]

Hi,

HGV's since 2015 have been fitted with these systems, you get used to them and it is the future I guess. This sort of thing will be fitted to all vehicles including motorhomes before you know it.

I have not heard of one just going off on it's own, that would concern me. Unless of course you hit a big fat bug that squished right over the radar. I would want to know exactly where that was located and be keeping it clean.

Here is a video for any reader not familiar.

 

[Den]

We purchased a Malibu with quite a loaded specification including AEB including pedestrians and cyclists   
On one occasion it did brake, not severely when a vehicle cut in on the motorway very close and slowed down to take the exit. 
it worked superbly. 
I did have adaptive cruise control on my Ford Transit custom and covered in 2 years 100 ,000 plus miles using the ACC 90% of the time on the motorways. Brilliant 

windscreen was kept clean at all times and I’m sure I used for more than most of screen wash. 
I'm told you can only purchase new minibuses with the AEB so should be interesting when we purchase some early next year. 

[crocs]

2 hours ago, Nick the wanderer said:

Unless of course you hit a big fat bug that squished right over the radar

Fortunately, the manufacturers have thought of this one. In a heavy snowstorm, I had a dashboard message that ACC was unavailable for precisely this reason. So, it defaults to ‘off’.

[spirou]

On 27/09/2023 at 20:10, Nick the wanderer said:

Hi, 

well re the HGV they have been fitted to those for quite a few years. I hated them but you were able to turn them off, we were advised against it in incase of accident etc, but anyway the HGV driver would be experiencing the same feeling as you, being gripped by the seatbelt and everything else in the cab heading toward the windscreen!

Judging by a recent fatal accident nearby, and recalling several similar ones, where an HGV driver was apparently busy with things other than driving and missing the obvious, very visible standing traffic on the straight motorway, it does not seem to be a widespread system or it is routinely turned off.

[HymerVan]

A word in favour of autonomous braking systems.

I have a 2018 Audi Q2 (think golf sized SUV). In 2021 I was driving in a relatively narrow urban street with cars parked on each side and quite slowly perhaps 20-25 mph. Suddenly the car performed a full blown emergency stop, quickly enough to prevent striking a car door and its passengers leg opened directly into my path on the nearside. I initially rationalised that I had performed a remarkably quick stop by reflex action but soon realised that the car had begun to brake before I joined in. So the system worked and saved the day. The "domestic" between the driver and his passenger was pretty dramatic though. 

(Edited to correct year)

[John52]

On 28/09/2023 at 07:33, laimeduck said:

Or driving 6' away from the car infront at 70mph? Would the technology deal with that? You can't invent stuff to deal with all stupid!

Jeremy

Yes - judging by the number of tailgaiting lorries 🤬 they can't all have it working.

What concerns me is whether it would pick up things at the side of the road we are forced to pass close to - like the overhanging greenery on Englands un-maintained rural roads.  I say England (especially Lake District, Devon, & Cornwall) because its much less of a problem in Scotland - although that may be due to less stuff able to grow at the side of the road. (due to poorer soil and more wind) 

[Albertslad]

On 28/09/2023 at 05:56, John52 said:

Depends on the driver I suppose

If the driver can be relied upon to brake when necessary I would agree

But as long as there are drivers looking are their mobile phones or whatever instead of the road.....

Perhaps these systems should have a camera on the driver.

And I’m intrigued to know the make of car Brian?

Albertslad