At this point I don't know if I'd buy anything made after 2008. Whenever I rent a new car around here (in the EU) I find them very annoying. The worst is the cruise control that tries to stick to the speed limit -- but its sensors don't always read the signs very well, so you'll often slow to 50 km/h (about 30 mph) for no reason. Then there's the incessant beeping at you, "lane assist" that you can't turn off (looking at you, Volkswagen,) and many more small annoyances. A camera pointed at your face just adds insult to injury.
Over Christmas, I spent several minutes trying to debug my beeping dashboard - it only seemed to happen sometimes while driving, so stopping didn’t let me figure it out. Eventually I discovered that it was beeping at me because my eyes weren’t on the road enough. Of course, figuring that out required me to take my eyes off the road to figure out which blinking signal was associated with this particular alarm.
Also, being constantly warned that I was speeding in rural areas where the car missed a speed limit sign caused me to start ignoring the speeding alarm within a few hours of driving the car.
I feel like there’s some lesson here in building to the lowest common denominator, and giving people products rather than tools (tools are more dangerous, but more useful), but maybe I’m just grumpy.
So to play devil's advocate... were you taking your eyes off the road for too long?
There are many many poor drivers and many many distracted drivers out there. I'm not accusing you of one, but maybe a little bit of self-introspection may be necessary.
You can switch them off but only until the engine is turned off again. Most manufacturers have a shortcut on the dashboard or steering wheel though. Eventually you just get used to doing that every time you start driving.
For those interested or forced to buy a new car — I recently picked up a brand new Hyundai and was impressed the new tech does not get in the way. ‘Driver attention warning’ does not have a face camera, it just uses the front sensor to confirm you’re not all over the place. It can also be disabled. Lane assist can be disabled with one button on the wheel. Almost all important controls are real (non capacitive) buttons. Warnings can be customized. Smart cruise control can be customized. As someone who really liked his 90s Toyota, I’m impressed.
I have a BYD Seal I bought last year, and it doesn't have a face camera. My mom's new BYD Dolphin does, so maybe it's just very recent.
I have to disable the traffic sign warnings and lane keeping assistance every time I start the car. It's a swipe and three taps, but still annoying. I wish it could at least stay disabled for some time.
IMO most features are annoying and contribute to alarm fatigue and driver irritation, but are not directly dangerous.
Lane keep assist though? I often drive on narrow country roads barely wide enough for two cars, with a white line on each side but no center line. To avoid large oncoming cars, I need to drive on the white line to my right. When I do, lane keep assist activates motors in my steering wheel which try to force the car into the oncoming traffic.
Easy to turn on in the modern car I sometimes drive, but oh my god, that was scary the first few times it happened. Beeping at me is bad enough but messing with the steering wheel??? This should be illegal, not required!
I'm mostly pro EU but this crap is genuinely making me resent them.
In my experience (Tesla), attention monitoring works well even when I'm wearing sunglasses. The camera can still see my eyes even through dark polarised lenses.
It may depend on the sunglasses, however - other people report problems with sunglasses that have mirrored lenses etc.
I can answer this, since I have a new car with this camera and polarized sunglasses.
MOST of the time it's good about telling when I'm looking and when I'm not, out of maybe... 5 alerts over the previous 8 months all, but one occurred when I was in fact looking away for one reason or another. Likewise when it's correct my lane-keeping it's been right about me drifting.
Given how inattentive I see other drivers being, on their phones for example, and taking into account that I'm (based on my record) a good driver who is attentive... I appreciate these additions. I doubt that they make us less safe, we just dislike anyone or anything telling us how to drive, because "we already know what we're doing." The subjective experience of being distracted however isn't usually so clear-cut, it FEELS like you're paying attention.
Note: This is a new model Lexus, so I expect this represents that brand as well as Toyota, but beyond that I don't know.
I bought a fancy Toyota SUV after my trusty 2008 Honda was damaged in an accident.
The nagging is ridiculous. I’m actually not quite sure what lane assist does, but if I look at my side mirror it chastises me for not being attentive. It also has locked up the brakes and made me think I hit somebody when backing into my driveway.
Don't rule out another Cash for Clunkers. The 2009 program destroyed 1 in 300 cars on the road. The next one could be bigger. Also, 3 in 4 cars on the road today are now in states requiring emissions tests for your annual registration, which can pose a significant (and growing, as standards improve) obstacle for older cars.
> which can pose a significant (and growing, as standards improve) obstacle for older cars.
At least for my state, the emissions test a car has to pass is whatever it was supposed to have passed when it was fresh off the assembly line. So older cars do not have to pass stricter newer standards that newer cars have to pass.
Now, granted, wear and tear will eventually result in an older car not passing its original standard, but at least the standard it has to pass is fixed, rather than a moving target.
The article is about the EU, but since you brought up US emissions testing... I live in California, only drive mid 2000s cars, and haven't noticed any of the restrictions getting tighter. It's the usual check every 2 years at the same place. Seems my cars are grandfathered into old emissions standards too.
And yeah I enjoy having my car shut the hell up and let me drive.
For mid 2000s, the car is self monitoring so an emissions check is just a visual once over to ensure no physical tampering and a computer readout of emission readiness monitors + firmware checksum for digital tampering.
I’m imagine that’s coming soon. Most new large cars are getting turbos now to meet federal and state standards, the turbos wear faster and I’m sure there will be a desire to validate them.
There are some German cities (Munich) where you can’t enter the city center with a diesel car that doesn’t meet the EURO 4 standards. EURO 4 is a low bar but there’s really nothing stopping them from eventually implementing it more widely and upping the requirement to EURO 5, 6, etc.
I've been driving a 1996 VW diesel van in Germany including Munich, and nowhere anyone ever actually cared about the lack of the sticker. And now, at 30 years of age, it turned "oldtimer", so it is officially exempted.
Yup, a bigger issue for old cars trying to pass emissions is that with prices of precious metals, a worn out catalytic converter (diagnostic code P0420 ) means that most of them are mechanically totaled in California, New York, Colorado since they require either OEM or CARB approved replacements.
I bought a 2017 Kia Forte S recently.. ($4000 for 137K miles) no touch screen, but many safety features that are not too bad like radar collision detection and blindspot warning. 2019 they started with the touchscreen, and in 2023 they added "Kia Connect" with OTA updates. Anyway definitely check the year.
Problem with 2008 is some cars didn't even have Bluetooth audio or backup camera yet (like my 2010 VW CC- I had to add an aftermarket radio).
Also don't get direct inject only engine. At least for Kias, the non-turbo engines are much more reliable (but underpowered for sure).
We have an 80 kph sign about 6m after the autoweg sign (100kph), why they didn't combine them is anyone's guess. My detection system always misses it, and often there are speed checks. Fortunately I can disable sign recognition for the cruise control.
Wait does your cruise control automatically accelerate by default when it thinks it sees a sign..? That sounds terrifying! I've only seen systems which give you a prompt to switch speed which you can accept with a button
It BS article, no cameras pointed at your face are required. They require "Advanced Driver Distraction Warning System", don't specify how it should be implemented.
It specifically mentions that it is illegal to use the cameras from such system to identify the person. It is pretty much the opposite of what people think its going to do.
I am sorry you don't like that its not 1984 law but the discussion is bullshit, which means in that instead of 1984 dystopia we are getting the Brave new world dystopia where bullshit prevails in the brave new world.
I am sick and tired of BS rage bates of the endless entertainment; I would take 1984 dystopia anytime, at least we would know who the bad guys are.
I have a Volkswagen ID3, I love the adaptive cruise control. Yes, it gets it wrong in some spots (signage isn't great here in Asturias, Spain), and it gets it wrong in both directions (too slow at certain locations, too fast in others).
But I still appreciate the convenience of not having to keep an eye on the speed nor the distance between the my car and the vehicles in front of me when driving on the freeway, where it generally doesn't make mistakes.
I drive a Nissan Ariya sometimes, which has adaptive cruise control. It's ... okay, but I'm not sure my own car's "dumb" cruise control is any worse to be honest.
My own car's cruise control is just three large buttons on the steering wheel: one which says "keep going this speed when I take my foot off the gas", one cancel button, and one "go back to the previous speed" button. It works wonders and is quite comfortable to use. Never messes up, I can rely on it 100% to do its one simple job.
The Ariya is much more fancy, but it's so much less reliable. If it's snowing outside it sometimes just randomly turns itself off because sensors got covered in snow, leading to a rapid deceleration until I intervene. Sometimes it refuses to turn on because sensors are covered in snow. And its braking curve is uncomfortable; when the car in front stops (e.g in stop and go traffic), it gets way close to the car in front and brakes hard, instead of slowly coming to a stop at a comfortable distance. Oh and it's connected to the nav system; I've had it just suddenly slow the car down to a crawl because the nav system had chosen a stupid route, it slowed down to take an exit while I stayed on the highway.
I'll take dumb but reliable any day over smart and unreliable. Even if it means I sometimes have to actually adjust speed myself.
Relatedly, I don't actually mind having to drive the car. I like cruise control because my foot gets fatigued when pressing the gas pedal for hours on end, but making manual adjustments to my speed? Changing gears? Listening to the engine to make sure it's at a happy RPM? I feel like that stuff just gives me small stuff to do so I keep paying attention to the driving.
The incessant beeping in modern cars on the other hand is just a distraction. Luckily, the Nissan lets you configure it so that 2 quick button presses on the steering wheel disables all the useless alarms. I'm so happy I don't have to do that manually for each "safety" feature every time I get in.
The stuff BMW ships is great. The ACC that I tried in a normal Toyota a few years ago was way worse. I'm a huge ACC fan but it really woke me up that I need to evaluate the vendors before I purchase the car.
I have a CRV with adaptive cruise (USA) and while the car reads the speed limit signs it only uses them for display. There are instances where it misreads signs which is understandable because some of the road signs are very similar or the posted speed only applies to trucks ect.
But it does not adjust based on the reading, I manually set the speed but of course it'll slow down if there's a car in front. Automatically adjusting to the speed limit sounds insanely dangerous. It's very common place, at least in the US, to go 10 over the posted limit on controlled access highways, does the EU not operate in a similar mode?
I cannot tell you how many times I've punched the steering wheel. I want to find that source of beeping and rip its goddamn guts out of the system. Then I want to find who put it there and rip their guts too. I will rip their infernal existence out of this dimension.
And fuck cameras. Blatant privacy violation, how is this getting past legislation?
Last year, I rented a Kia. I was coasting downhill on a curve and approached a group of bikers. Everything was fine. I was a little below the speed limit, they were in the bike lane, I was in my lane, it was a sunny day. The car detected them as a hazard to avoid and STRAIGHTENED AND LOCKED MY STEERING WHEEL in the middle of the curve turn. I ran into a shallow ditch, but holy shit, what if it took control and over corrected onto an oncoming car?
O yea, that is driver lane assist ... A Toyota rental had the same issue. In a specific steep exit corner (that goes up facing the sun), how many ** times the lane assist tries to force the car to go straight (as in, off the hill! ). The first few times when it happens, scares the ** out of me.
Another fun one is going down a hill in a Rental Opel, roundabout with some cars, no problem. Slowing down naturally, while i see the cars accelerate to enter the roundabout. No need to break as by the time i get close, the cars will have started to accelerate. So my speed will have matched the last vehicles speed by the time i am close. Suddenly, emergency break slam on !!! Because "the car was going to hit the cars in front". Like, wtf!! That created a extreme dangerous situation if there was a car behind.
I really see no benefits for a lot of those new safety features. The old ones like traction controle etc, great, keep them. But all this external monitoring, internal monitoring ... If your a safe driver, those features can make it more dangerous.
The good news is that by making cars more trouble than they're worth, this may speed us closer to walkable, bikeable neighborhoods that can only be reasonably navigated on foot or by bike, connected by extensive public transit networks (which already do track where you're going).
Most of the rentals around my neck of the woods are VWs or entry-level Mercedes. The two seem approximately equally bad; they both have the exact same problems with cruise control, lane assist beeps, speed limit beeps, "take a break!" beeps, and so on.
I've heard that Dacia has some models that are like 2008 throwbacks, with "modern" annoyances kept to a bare minimum, but they're considered too low-market for the rental companies, I suppose. I'd consider that sort of thing if I were looking to buy a new car, money no object.
But really a well-maintained vehicle that's ~15-20 years old suits me just fine.
Ever driven a Dacia? I had one for a rental in Portugal. Honestly the least comfortable and most irritating vehicle I've ever driven. I'm not just being fussy, we've had plenty of Hyundais, Citroens and the like without a problem.
OP said after 2008. There are many cars made after 2008 that do not have intrusive systems. For example, my 2018 Camaro has none of that. The only proximity sensors it has are side vehicle indicators and all they do is turn on a light.
New cars with intrusive driver monitoring alerts are obviously going to be terrible but you can still buy vehicles made prior to this change.
Well yeah, that's the point. They want to enshitify cars and make driving as expensive and as annoying as possible to force people out of cars. They know they can't just ban cars outright, so they enshitify this little thing this year, mandate this other thing the next year, add a new tax/fee the next year, add a new restriction the next year, reduce speed limits the next year, etc., etc., all in the name of safety / "save the kids", until decades later they finally get to where they want to be.
Yeah. Whenever someone starts explaining to me that "they" - meaning some vague and undefined cartel - want you to (blank) I immediately flag their reasoning as suspect until proven otherwise. More often than not it's indicative of a lack of serious critical thought.
Examples include some version of "They want us to act like slaves" or "They want to control our minds".
More often than not the simplest explanation is short-sighted profit motive, or institutional dysfunction, or multiple parties with conflicting motivations with no central agenda. It's far less likely to be a grand coordinated conspiracy.
The “green movement” and “the environment” but mostly a desire for control. Why should people be able to own private property like cars, we should all be using government owned means of transportation in our new socialist utopia.
Lane assist is also genuinely dangerous when there's men at work on the road and they change the lanes, yet the car tries to stick to the painted ones and I have to fight the car to do what it has to do we don't kill nobody.
Also happens it gets confused with freshly painted white/yellow lines when older are still visible.
I have a dodge ram (work provided truck) with lane assist. I had it completely disabled for two years because it was awful and possibly dangerous as you mentioned, though I’d enable it on rare really long multi-hour drives across states. Fortunately the button to turn it off stayed that way instead of having to set it every start.
This year I never turned it off. I’m guessing they updated the algorithm because it seems a lot more subtle, I don’t feel it being aggressive like before. When I deliberately cross the line (which happens a lot right now, lots of summer road fixing going on) I don’t notice it fighting me.
Tell me you live in a civilised country without telling me you live in a civilised country.
Over here, in Greece, whenever you try to avoid a pothole, a double-parked car, a cyclist, a pedestrian, a stray, ANYTHING, lane assist always tries its best to make you hit whatever you're trying to avoid.
Earlier this year, I rented a new Toyota Camry (US model). It had lane assist, but it was very easy to override it. I didn't really have to fight it. (And that was nice. I've drive other cars where it was more of a battle.)
So, yeah, it's done badly some of the time. But it at least can be done well.
I don't know, even if it's not that forceful, sometimes I have a light touch on the wheel and I'm going straight, I don't want to suddenly have to fight the car swerving me onto oncoming traffic.
New cars are UX nightmares. I'm driving an electric Toyota bz4x. Lovely mechanics, but the general UX (some are because of Android Auto) is terrible.
The remote's lock/unlock don't do anything when the car is on. Example: I'm by the trunk and it won't open unless I go back to the driver's door and unlock the doors. App's remote function has too many conditions to do anything. For instance, I'm resting in the back seat and want to turn on the car for some air conditioning, but it says: the doors should be locked, the key fab should be out of the car to start the car.
I'm listening to an audio through a webpage, as soon as I change the volume it starts my last music. This is really annoying. I should guess the right volume, unlock my phone, resume my audio. Old physical volume knobs only changed the volume, not start one of the few apps they know about.
Oh and if I've been listening to loud music and now someone's in the car, I can't lower the volume without starting the music. I want to start with a low volume and then increase it.
These are some of the many stupid UX decisions.
I would still not drive an old car. Especially ICE. But would pray that the equivalent of Frame.work appears, I can get an open source car with an open source infotainment.
With Chevrolet starting to sell DIY EV packages and the general simplification of the mechanics of EV cars, I believe such a thing would eventually happen.
You mean the bZ4X. It wasn't enough that the name is incomprehensible, they also capitalized it incomprehensibly. I think the primary goal of that car was to see how few they could sell, so they could go back to hybrid and hydrogen.
New Teslas are not a UX nightmare... go test drive a Kia, Hyundai, Toyota, GM, etc, then lastly a Tesla. Come back and tell me which car has the best software.
That's because you bought a car from a company which places UX at the bottom of their list. On top of that, even if they place it high on their list, they are simply incompetent at it.
All of the things you described work perfectly as you'd expect from good UX pov on a Tesla. And Rivian should not be far behind either.
Ford has had that since Blue Cruise 2.0, or thereabouts. It really shocked me how often it catches my attention being diverted. Things like talking to my passengers, adjusting the climate controls, or eating- I'm not even talking about 'advanced distractions' like my phone.
It also seemed really accurate. I never remember it beeping at me when I was actually paying attention.
It's totally plausible to me that this kind of nudge will save a lot of lives.
My experience with my Volvo EX30 has been the complete opposite. Although the false positives have gone down with software updates, it's still wrong so often I turn it off every time it bothers me. Due to some other regulation, this setting is unfortunately not remembered. That means every time I get in the car, I have to spend time going trough the settings to disable it, often while already driving. Seems like a great idea.
The biggest false positives involve singing or talking being mis-interpreted for yawning. Which then triggers a notification and a noise telling me "maybe it's time for a beak", which makes me look at the screen in the center console, which then triggers a second notification telling me to "please look at the road".
I'm not sure it's actual regulations, but the Euro NCAP safety tests requiring all these "features" (like not remembering when you turn them off) to get a max score.
Impossible to measure, many other uncontrolled variables - esp. significant improvements to infrastructure in Europe, and regulations. Take NL, where a crash involving a pedestrian or a cyclist effectively forces the driver to prove their innocence. I can walk across a Dutch town blindfolded with the biggest risk to my wellbeing being cyclists (well, and the canals). I'd guess the impact of those intervention dwarfs the "i will beep at you until i make you deaf if you don't put your seatbelt over your grocery bag" innovations.
I grew up in/with cars which would score 0 (more like -3 to -5) and made it to adulthood, so I have a feeling that these features are not strictly neccesary.
At the same time what if it saves at least one life a year? (same goes for riding with/without helmets)
Sounds about right for Volvo, sadly. I’ve owned four over the years, all great, but my most recent one has such dogshit software that I’ll never buy another Volvo.
> It also seemed really accurate. I never remember it beeping at me when I was actually paying attention.
This is the exact opposite of my experience! The one time I tried BlueCruise, it went into "panic mode" every time I turned my head to check my blindspots.
It gives me false positives when I'm holding the wheel at the top and my wrist is blocking line of sight from the camera. On the other hand, sunglasses have never tripped it all.
Owned a Ford Mustang Mach-e with BkueCruise for about 3 years now. No obvious false alarms about missing attention. Interestingly, it doesn't get confused by my sunglasses and still catches me looking aside for too long. I think it is a rather good implementation overall.
good way to get notification fatigue and tunnel vision. look ahead, ignore everything else and have a shocked pikachu face when you sideswipe someone because you're well trained to not check your blind spots
I need to call bullshit on this. I own the same system and it totally allows looking around for normal driving. Stare to the side or the center console for more than a few seconds and it will alert you - exactly at the point where it becomes recklessly unsafe to do so.
The Kia Niro EVs I drive at work have something that apparently detects driver fatigue. I don't know what sets it off but it starts beeping at fire alarm levels and makes the huge LCD constantly flash up warnings, usually before I've even left the yard. There doesn't appear to be a way to turn it off or stop it, so you just have to put up with a constant "BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING" for the whole journey.
I used to eat all the time while I was driving my car. I mean, why not, right?
Then in 1997, I was stone-cold homeless, hitting rock-bottom, but I was still holding on to my analog cell phone, my 21-speed bike, my kite collection for the beach, and my 1988 black Integra with moonroof.
So of course on day-release from the homeless shelter, I went to the neighborhood Burger King drive-thru, for a double Whopper with cheese, large fries, and large Dr Pepper or something.
And as was my custom, I shoved that Dr Pepper cup right next to the parking brake and I took off at 30mph to eat my fries on the way back.
So as I passed a 2-way stop sign, a black Porsche 928 ran his stop sign, and t-boned me in broad daylight. And my Dr Pepper splashed all over everything, man. And then the driver stopped and he managed to make me hand-write a note that I signed to accept all responsibility and liability for the accident.
And then my insurance company phoned me to tell me that was a dumb move, legally speaking, but they still went through subrogation and recouped even my deductible from that Porsche jerk.
So my car was totaled that day and towed off to the scrap yard, but at least I had a really awful cheeseburger. Crying shame about my lost soda.
I honestly have zero idea how this is at all related to the story at hand, but the surfeit of unnecessary specific details is both enjoyable and making me slightly suspicious that this is AI :)
I think part of this acceptance of the "well if it saves one [usually child's] life..." - it's extremely powerful but is deceptive as it devalues the value of freedom (or some similar trait).
I love the warning about not having hands on the steering wheel.
It goes off all the time. And each time, my hands are on the steering wheel.
It doesn't actually detect contact - it checks to see if you're actively adjusting the steering wheel.
Except I don't need to! The lane keep assist is so good that it's rare I have to give it additional help.
So - I kid you not - I've gotten used to giving a nudge to the steering wheel every so many seconds to prevent that warning (you cannot disable it).
Imagine a car gave you cruise control, and then checked if you were paying attention by requiring you to press down on the accelerator every so many seconds. Does that make sense?
This driving session brought to you by your friends at PepsiCo. There's a Buc-ee's on your route. Would you like to add a stop to grab a cool refreshing 44 oz Mountain Dew Code Red?
If I hate anything about the EU, its the morons writing regulations for cars. My car constantly distracts me with some beeps, sometimes loud enough to be dangerous. Its surely one of the reasons far right is on the rise -- with things like 'drivers party' in some European countries winning serious votes. I spend 1-2hrs in the car each day, and I hate what those regulations did to driving.
(Worst offenders: Japanese cars since they seem to take the regulations most seriously. Least annoying: generally BMW, Volvo, though they are both getting worse each year).
I was recently in the Uk and one of the cars I was in would alert the driver if he was over the speed limit. Fair enough. But the alert itself is distracting. Are we to review every single alert from these cameras? Is that not just another distraction?
There’s usually some kind of short cut action to disable that for the car. In a Mercedes you hold the volume down button in the steering wheel for 3 seconds and it “updates settings” which is basically disabling that annoying feature.
I've literally had my vehicle alarm and tell me to keep both hands on the steering wheel when I had both hands on for a long time. My biggest concern is where do false alarms take us in the not-too-distant future? Inept sensing -> you can't drive.
It's very hard to do that when every few seconds some new alarm goes off and some big red flashing warning on the TV screen that's blocking your view of the road comes on.
This hyperbole is barely worth responding to. If someone really triggers alerts on such a regular basis, then I have to question whether they have a road legal driving style based on the quality and accuracy those assistants actually have now achieved.
Oh, and the dashboard in my newest car is smaller than any dashboard with analog needles could ever have been. Dashboards probably have gotten smaller, not bigger with the switch to LCD screens.
Perhaps not everyone should be driving? This is not a criticism towards you, I don't have the patience to be behind a wheel, and I know of many drivers that are a danger to themselves and others. If the side effect of this system is that there are fewer people driving because they can't manage the alarms, then that's good enough for me.
I have a 2012 Skoda Yeti, 170000 miles. Serviced every year, never had anything go wrong with it yet. If it starts costing me money I will buy a 2012 Skoda Yeti from Autotrader with 50000 miles on the clock. At my age that should just about do me :)
I have a manual 2003 Golf TDI (purchased in 2003; has a tape deck!) that's slowly rusting, and I'm not looking forward to when I have to replace it.
I don't have a garage/drive way, and so have to park on the street, which makes me leans towards another short [1] vehicle: currently thinking about VW Golf, Mazda 3, Mazda CX-30, Kia Niro.
From what I've seen from almost all cars, lots more screens and lots fewer buttons.
Yeah I have 2002 Honda accord and I’m dreading the day I need to get a modern car. My wife has a 2021 car and there is not a single feature it has that is necessary. In fact, many of them are actively bad. I’ve been driving every day, accident free, for 20 years and have never once needed lane assist, attention tracking or whatever the fuck. I wish there was a car that just had no additional ‘features’ beyond actual mechanical/efficiency improvements.
And you can bypass a seatbelt warning by just plugging in a buckle without the belt, but most people don't bother. It's not worth the inconvenience to circumvent, so it still has a positive impact on safety.
Toyota... When we look after a dog for a few days for a friend, it beeps. When I put shopping on the back seat, it beeps. Drives me wild. It "beep... beep... beep..." for a minute then "BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP".
I wouldn't get another because of how annoying that is.
I once made the mistake of renting one of those cars, putting my backpack and some groceries behind me, and driving straight onto a freeway. This absolute sh*tbox was beeping so loud I was afraid for my hearing. I drove some 10 miles like this before I could pull over and move the things. I'd not set foot in one of those cars ever again (same goes for Lexus). I was dreaming of really bad things happening to people who thought it was a good idea to emit series of very loud beeps while the car is driving.
Uh, oh! That's great. Need to get an Arnold Rimmer or Captain Kirk one.
Of course, one wonders what the car does if the camera is blocked with a post-it. Will it just not work, or fall back on something else, like pressure at the steering wheel, like Tesla does ?
This is why I like modern Renaults/Dacias. They all come with a single button to turn all of this stuff off, or to a preset of your choosing. No need to fiddle with a screen, nothing you cannot disable. Bliss.
What prevent you from putting a sticker over it ? 0.1€ cost, can be removed in case of control otherwise you can pretend the camera wasn't working.
End of story...
Honestly, I'm all for more automated system while driving because I drive but I also bike and walk. Some people are complete nuts that shouldn't have their license and the least you can do is hold their hand, with as much algorithm as you can, like they are toddlers driving a 3 Tonne car.
That sounds like a hardware issue that might be soluble in "wire cutters and a bad attitude", or at minimum "hot air resoldering station, microscope, and a bad attitude". I wonder what their software stack is like, too.
Those are the same insane morons who came up with the cookie consent. Cottage industry of lawyers that push for those regulations and then collect lucrative retainers from companies wishing to not be fined. One of the reasons EU is so hopelessly behind on any innovation.
It's bad though because glancing at your side-view mirrors is good, but this will train drivers out of it by beeping at them because their eyes aren't perfectly forwards-facing.
It's an overly simplistic solution to a complex problem, that also coincidentally helps advance the surveillance state more than it does help prevent distracted driving.
The regulations are great, in theory. In practice, I've noticed that implementation of the technologies are lacking. So on paper, lane keeping will keep you on the road when distracted. In practice, it does not. You'll be beeped at a million times, though.
I have two vehicles with lane keeping (a 2017 Chrysler and a 2025 Ford). Both of them work quite well. The system in the Chrysler will nudge you back if you drift outside of your lane, while the system in the Ford will do that plus automatically stay centered in the lane when cruise control is active.
I have driven vehicles that have lane departure warnings without lane keeping, and they're much less useful.
Maybe I drive more defensively than most but I almost never drive in the center of the lane unless I am in a ‘middle’ lane with lanes on either side. I drive with my tire riding the correct side of the solid line demarcating the shoulder, people (especially pickups hauling trailers, pro semi drivers are usually good) are really bad at staying in their lanes so I sometimes drive onto the shoulder to prevent an accident in the case of another driver lane drifting and overcorrecting.
I typically stay in the middle of the lane, but will drift to one side when I'm passing a vehicle that is wider or potentially erratic. I've never noticed lane-keeping fighting me when there's a car next to me; I wonder if they use the blind spot sensors to detect when to give some leeway in these situations.
That's the trouble with automating cars - being quite accurate is not really that great over 100k miles. On Tesla's specifically I find the "hands on wheel" attention detection a bit iffy.
For FSD, at least in the US they long dropped the hands on the wheel thing, unless the attention monitoring isn't functioning. At least the folks I know that have it, they absolutely love it.
The current docs still say issues with the camera detection results in the hands on wheel prompts https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/2017_2023_model3/en_us/GU... but yes, it was nice when they removed the requirement to have the hands on the wheel even when the camera was working right.
I liked the Tesla progress & road trips but my real bar for joy is the Waymo style promise/start of delivery. There's no fallback to wait for improvement there, either it does everything it promises or it doesn't do anything!
lane assist is fundamentally an unsolvable problem with just a cheap camera, it's in the same category as autonomous driving, that's what these stupid legislation do not get.
Anybody who drove in a construction area with messed up / duplicated lanes can attest how this kind of software stuggles.
It seems like you are being downvoted but I've had the exact issue you mention where there is heavy over-banding on the road surface. Or where you try to move out to overtake a cyclist and it decides to correct you back into lane.
This feels like a regulation whose effectiveness will expire in the next couple of years (as driverless cars become the norm), but which will set a precedent that this is the norm. This with the EU chat control coming up really set a tone.
I purchased a new a hybrid car a year ago. It is impossible to deactivate permanently speed limit and lane alerts. They are useless, dumb and dangerous if you ask me. Detecting a 40km/h on the highway from a road sign on a near by road it's not safety. It's been a year of touching and correcting touches for disabling these two alerts, of course you have to do more clicks no way of accessing it from a quick menu or from quick actions on the steering wheel. The car works perfectly but this thing is so annoying to me that I'm seriously thinking of selling it. The touch screen is slooooow, when the internal temperature is higher is even more slooow for a ui that should be 1200fps for what it does even on a underpowered throttled by heat waves board chip. I either sell the car of take my time and find a way to hack that damn firmware. This is not the way to go, the way to go is autonomous driving not all this annoying BS
This is already in Teslas for supervised self driving, not sure what the big deal is. People can be very distracted while driving and the Tesla OS makes sure to let them know.
Not sure about the systems on cars in the EU, but I got a loaner 2025 Hyundai Tuscon when my EV was in the shop. It had some driver attention monitoring feature with a camera above the steering wheel staring me in the eyes. I covered it with a piece of black electrical tape. It popped a little warning on the main display (IIRC, a crossed out eye, but maybe I'm confusing with Subaru Eyesight) when the car first started up, showing that the camera wasn't working, then proceeded to be silent for the rest of the drive.
I dunno if that'll fly going forward. I know I'll test it in every new car with this feature that I test drive though!
Expect an error but this will depend on the brand.
"Smudging" is a common trick. Just dab some face oil on the lens, just enough so it can't get detail but not so much that the system can tell there's a covering.
Maybe you'll be able to buy a box to plug into the CAN bus and simulate pressing the button to deactivate it. Sorta like the auto-stop eliminator for that horrid feature (which saves less than 5 gallons of gas per year in my dad's Subaru - thankfully mine is one year too old for that).
Those nudges are gentle and totally safe in every car I've ever had. And no "random" nudges outside road construction work with dubious lane markings where you need to have a grip on the wheel anyway. A regular firm grip always overrides lane keeping.
I mostly agree in my 2024 Ioniq 5, but not in my 2019 Subaru Outback. You can definitely override the lane keep if you have a firm grip and are ready for it, but it tries to throw me off the road often enough that I don't use it anymore.
The scariest was when I had to swerve into another lane to avoid some trash that was sticking into the road from the highway. It tried to force me back into it twice! Luckily I was ready but it gave me a fright for sure.
Gadget Idea: Small display with a lens that can be mounted over the camera that hooks into the material around it, plays an AI generated video of $RANDOM_CELEBRITY singing karaoke off-key and driving very carefully.
I am unsure what would be the most annoying song for the remote viewers to listen to when off-key.
The headline is wrong. The article and the headline seems to be written in a way to cause outrage by giving the impression that the EU requires cameras which should be recording your face all the time and storing/sending it to authorities or something but what the EU actually requires is "Advanced Driver Distraction Warning System" which may be implemented using cameras and no recording or transmitting is required, in fact actually recording and transmitting would be a problem with GDPR.
Nope, the laws require Advanced Driver Distraction Warning System and does not require cameras aimed at your face.
Also, cameras are receivers. Nothing happens when cameras are aimed at your face, it is only significant when you are interested with the received image and it actually nothing happens, it is processed on device to see if you are tired/distracted/asleep.
I remember the brief period when they told us that the self service checkout weren't recording video. Then they just said oh actually they do now and nobody battered an eye lid
If the tech is put there it's just a matter of time. They can't resist
It won’t be long until someone finds a way to flash the firmware or install a bootleg sensor or something else. You can already get a lot “chipped” on VAG and BMW cars.
Chances are most manufacturers are going to use a cheap USB camera. Can a raspberry pi emulate webcam? Just place the same video of you diligently staring out of the window on repeat.
As a rule, I do my own maintenance or take the car to an independent mechanic. I wouldn't trust a dealer given how misaligned their incentives are with my interests.
I'll keep my 2014 golf mk7 thank you. Euro5, no adblue bullshit. Still gets good mileage, is still cheap to maintain even after 260k km (the biggest expense has been the dual mass flywheel with a clutchpack) and the only high tech feature is a radar based adaptive cruise control.
Considering how many mk7 golfs were made over the years it'll be easy to just get another one for the next decade. I'd also consider the Hyundai ioniq 5 or 6 which have a shortcut on the steering wheel to just disable all the nanny crap.
A mandatory camera and a mandatory modem in every car is a privacy nightmare. The EU does not care about privacy of it's subjects, it cares about control. The US is not much different. It's over for freedom in the west. The frogs are boiling.
And I triple hate that we've helped develop the technology that powers it.
In hindsight, it was inevitable.
"Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them."
Modern HN is all about the nanny state. If you're doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide ... right? It's not like a future government might decide that just existing as a certain race or accessing health care as a certain gender is a crime...
For those saying "disable all cellular radios", I don't recommend that; you would be in violation of European laws. To quote a previous comment of mine about a similar EU-mandated safety system:
The EU-wide "911 eCall" system records your location at all times and has a cellular modem connected to government systems. It is illegal to disable this system. If you still do so, there are fines, and your insurance is no longer considered fully valid in case of an accident.
Regarding specific legislation, for the Netherlands and our "APK" system, the relevant rule is under "Geluidssignaalinrichtingen en eCall", article 5.2.71 of the APK handboek, issued by our Rijksdienst voor het Wegverkeer.
In the EU, automatic surveillance cameras on the side of the road enforce this APK system, so if you do disable the eCall system, you will fail your APK, and you will automatically receive a fine. Even if you don't leave your driveway, the government is working hard to keep you safe; government camera surveillance cars drive around constantly, scanning your license plates, cross-referencing surveillance images with other government databases to automatically issue fines if you step out of line.
I really don't think there's anything to worry about, though; to quote another comment of mine:
>Thankfully, we're safe. Car software is notoriously high quality and rarely hacked. All governments are fully trustworthy, especially around espionage and privacy, and have a perfect track record of never lying to the public.
>Look, the European Commission stated that it cannot be hacked; "hackers cannot take control of it", from ec.europa.eu. They built an unhackable device. I am not sure what you could be worried about. If the government tells you something cannot be hacked, then it cannot be hacked. Furthermore, none of the EU member states have been found using other infrastructure to violate privacy laws.
> On the positive side, the regulations require the ADDW system to work on a "closed loop" without the use of biometric data.
lmfao, the regulations required antipollution systems too didn't they ?
Even if by some miracle this is the case for all manufacturers I'm betting my first son the software can helpfully be updated to be cloud enabled once insurances companies catch up or regulations are updated for more safety.
Hope you like walking a lot.
It's so incredible the difference in mindset across the Atlantic.
In the US, it is MY job and no one else's to make sure I don't fall asleep driving my own car. In the same way it's my job to make sure I don't leave my stove on and burn down the apartment building. Should we also install cameras on every stove in every apartment?
If the US government tried to force-install cameras into our cars to watch us, there'd be a revolution.
Ok I'm a citizen of EU country. I don't consent, I don't agree. I want a car without inside cameras, without systems beeping, blinking, nor vibrating at me. Don't you ever move the steering wheel under my hands. Why I'm screaming into the void?
So, 1. yet another beep/boop in the car contributing to alert-fatigue, and 2. another stream of data inevitably sent off-device and monetized in god knows what ways by god knows which third party "partners".
I would rather die in a car crash than get nagged like this. Europe is the nanniest of nanny states, its inconceivable that people actually want to live like this.
Many of these warnings are hazardous, especially in an unfamiliar vehicle. They are extremely annoying and often incorrect. They result in extended periods of distracted driving trying to figure out how to turn off the warning.
I was in a rental car recently that was filled with random chimes going off. I had no idea what any of it meant, but it was sure a nuisance and took my mind off the road.
Very different threat model though. Commercial aircraft aren't sensitive to keep-your-eyes-on-the-road failures with seconds-scale latencies, airlines require autopilot use, there is a copilot present at all times, the FAA very strictly regulates work hours and substance use, etc...
Sure, don't nag a pilot who is already very well backstopped by the existing solutions. Your uncle coming back from the bar at 2am doesn't have any of that.
Designing this machine vision system is insurmountable. It will never be actually good at its stated purpose, because how much you can look through some window or glance back at your kids is decided by the outside environment and it will be impossible to fit accurate judgement of it in the computers in the car.
Also, lane assist fucking sucks. It places all cars in the same place on the road, i.e. all wear is in the same place as well, and in relation to the marked edges of the road, which often isn't the natural placing in curves and so on. As a consequence roads likely need maintenance more often, and as a proficient driver that does not let the car have opinions about placement on the road one commonly has much smaller margins when placing the car in the nice trajectory through a curve due to the sunken lanes from the assisted cars.
I have news for you: those systems already exist and they work. The "insurmountable" development work has already been done. How long you can safely look away from the road is determined mostly by physics and has hard bounds. More than ~5 seconds is never OK while the vehicle is on a public road. At speed, a single second can be a second too long. The problem isn't that the road looks clear now. The problem is that this can change instantly, without warning and in the most surprising ways at any moment. A kid running into the road from behind a car, an object falling onto the road, an animal jumping onto the road from the brush/ditch/tree-line... the list goes on. Forcing the driver to pay attention is good. There is no massive situational leeway.
I actually suggested a solution like this 2 years ago, because so many drivers are bad at signaling. I wanted a camera that used machine learning to learn a driver's cues when they're making a turn, and eventually it would be able to activate the signals for the driver.
I'm sick and tired of standing on the side of the road with my dog and waiting for a car just for it to make a turn. FOAD
I am rarely in a rush, if a car signals I will allow it to turn, I will stand back and wait, no problem. But 80% of them are really bad at this.
All new cars.
At this point I don't know if I'd buy anything made after 2008. Whenever I rent a new car around here (in the EU) I find them very annoying. The worst is the cruise control that tries to stick to the speed limit -- but its sensors don't always read the signs very well, so you'll often slow to 50 km/h (about 30 mph) for no reason. Then there's the incessant beeping at you, "lane assist" that you can't turn off (looking at you, Volkswagen,) and many more small annoyances. A camera pointed at your face just adds insult to injury.
Over Christmas, I spent several minutes trying to debug my beeping dashboard - it only seemed to happen sometimes while driving, so stopping didn’t let me figure it out. Eventually I discovered that it was beeping at me because my eyes weren’t on the road enough. Of course, figuring that out required me to take my eyes off the road to figure out which blinking signal was associated with this particular alarm.
Also, being constantly warned that I was speeding in rural areas where the car missed a speed limit sign caused me to start ignoring the speeding alarm within a few hours of driving the car.
I feel like there’s some lesson here in building to the lowest common denominator, and giving people products rather than tools (tools are more dangerous, but more useful), but maybe I’m just grumpy.
So to play devil's advocate... were you taking your eyes off the road for too long?
There are many many poor drivers and many many distracted drivers out there. I'm not accusing you of one, but maybe a little bit of self-introspection may be necessary.
That sounds like one of those situations where you just keep turning up the radio until the beeping goes away
Imagine driving thru night with kids sleeping and suddenly car starts beeping.
Is there a way how to switch sensors off for similar situations?
You can switch them off but only until the engine is turned off again. Most manufacturers have a shortcut on the dashboard or steering wheel though. Eventually you just get used to doing that every time you start driving.
For those interested or forced to buy a new car — I recently picked up a brand new Hyundai and was impressed the new tech does not get in the way. ‘Driver attention warning’ does not have a face camera, it just uses the front sensor to confirm you’re not all over the place. It can also be disabled. Lane assist can be disabled with one button on the wheel. Almost all important controls are real (non capacitive) buttons. Warnings can be customized. Smart cruise control can be customized. As someone who really liked his 90s Toyota, I’m impressed.
I have a BYD Seal I bought last year, and it doesn't have a face camera. My mom's new BYD Dolphin does, so maybe it's just very recent.
I have to disable the traffic sign warnings and lane keeping assistance every time I start the car. It's a swipe and three taps, but still annoying. I wish it could at least stay disabled for some time.
EU driving assists are obtrusive to the point of making driving less safe in my experience. Great video on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-S76WEl25k
IMO most features are annoying and contribute to alarm fatigue and driver irritation, but are not directly dangerous.
Lane keep assist though? I often drive on narrow country roads barely wide enough for two cars, with a white line on each side but no center line. To avoid large oncoming cars, I need to drive on the white line to my right. When I do, lane keep assist activates motors in my steering wheel which try to force the car into the oncoming traffic.
Easy to turn on in the modern car I sometimes drive, but oh my god, that was scary the first few times it happened. Beeping at me is bad enough but messing with the steering wheel??? This should be illegal, not required!
I'm mostly pro EU but this crap is genuinely making me resent them.
Can't you turn that feature off?
I often complain about the lack of buttons, but my car actually has a dedicated button to turn this safety feature off.
IIRC, veering from the lane is the cause of most collisions, so it makes sense to have this.
You can't turn it off, you can temporarily disable it but it gets enabled again the next time you get in the car.
Regardless, I feel like maybe "suddenly automatically jerk the steering wheel to drive into oncoming traffic" mode should maybe be off by default?
How many bells would sound if SUNGLASSES hid your eyes?!
In my experience (Tesla), attention monitoring works well even when I'm wearing sunglasses. The camera can still see my eyes even through dark polarised lenses.
It may depend on the sunglasses, however - other people report problems with sunglasses that have mirrored lenses etc.
I can answer this, since I have a new car with this camera and polarized sunglasses.
MOST of the time it's good about telling when I'm looking and when I'm not, out of maybe... 5 alerts over the previous 8 months all, but one occurred when I was in fact looking away for one reason or another. Likewise when it's correct my lane-keeping it's been right about me drifting.
Given how inattentive I see other drivers being, on their phones for example, and taking into account that I'm (based on my record) a good driver who is attentive... I appreciate these additions. I doubt that they make us less safe, we just dislike anyone or anything telling us how to drive, because "we already know what we're doing." The subjective experience of being distracted however isn't usually so clear-cut, it FEELS like you're paying attention.
Note: This is a new model Lexus, so I expect this represents that brand as well as Toyota, but beyond that I don't know.
Just because it's available in a Lexus does not mean it's available in a Corolla
I bought a fancy Toyota SUV after my trusty 2008 Honda was damaged in an accident.
The nagging is ridiculous. I’m actually not quite sure what lane assist does, but if I look at my side mirror it chastises me for not being attentive. It also has locked up the brakes and made me think I hit somebody when backing into my driveway.
I wish I had fixed the Honda!
Are you talking about an old Honda or some issue with new Hondas?
They had a 2008 Honda which was damaged and bought a new Toyota which has modern issues. Did you read their comment at all?
Don't rule out another Cash for Clunkers. The 2009 program destroyed 1 in 300 cars on the road. The next one could be bigger. Also, 3 in 4 cars on the road today are now in states requiring emissions tests for your annual registration, which can pose a significant (and growing, as standards improve) obstacle for older cars.
> which can pose a significant (and growing, as standards improve) obstacle for older cars.
At least for my state, the emissions test a car has to pass is whatever it was supposed to have passed when it was fresh off the assembly line. So older cars do not have to pass stricter newer standards that newer cars have to pass.
Now, granted, wear and tear will eventually result in an older car not passing its original standard, but at least the standard it has to pass is fixed, rather than a moving target.
BC stopped emission testing 10ish years ago because new cars almost never fail so there wasn't much value continuing the program.
The article is about the EU, but since you brought up US emissions testing... I live in California, only drive mid 2000s cars, and haven't noticed any of the restrictions getting tighter. It's the usual check every 2 years at the same place. Seems my cars are grandfathered into old emissions standards too.
And yeah I enjoy having my car shut the hell up and let me drive.
For mid 2000s, the car is self monitoring so an emissions check is just a visual once over to ensure no physical tampering and a computer readout of emission readiness monitors + firmware checksum for digital tampering.
I’m imagine that’s coming soon. Most new large cars are getting turbos now to meet federal and state standards, the turbos wear faster and I’m sure there will be a desire to validate them.
There are some German cities (Munich) where you can’t enter the city center with a diesel car that doesn’t meet the EURO 4 standards. EURO 4 is a low bar but there’s really nothing stopping them from eventually implementing it more widely and upping the requirement to EURO 5, 6, etc.
I've been driving a 1996 VW diesel van in Germany including Munich, and nowhere anyone ever actually cared about the lack of the sticker. And now, at 30 years of age, it turned "oldtimer", so it is officially exempted.
I live in California, only drive mid 2000s cars, and haven't noticed any of the restrictions getting tighter.
Last year, or the year before, Texas dropped emissions testing, except in its most populous counties.
The emissions tests only test to the level that the car was first registered (or produced) doesn't it?
Yup, a bigger issue for old cars trying to pass emissions is that with prices of precious metals, a worn out catalytic converter (diagnostic code P0420 ) means that most of them are mechanically totaled in California, New York, Colorado since they require either OEM or CARB approved replacements.
Cash for Clunkers was not mandatory
Not being mandatory and not having an effect are different claims.
If you keep a population poor enough, almost anything can be functionally mandatory.
>2008
I bought a 2017 Kia Forte S recently.. ($4000 for 137K miles) no touch screen, but many safety features that are not too bad like radar collision detection and blindspot warning. 2019 they started with the touchscreen, and in 2023 they added "Kia Connect" with OTA updates. Anyway definitely check the year.
Problem with 2008 is some cars didn't even have Bluetooth audio or backup camera yet (like my 2010 VW CC- I had to add an aftermarket radio).
Also don't get direct inject only engine. At least for Kias, the non-turbo engines are much more reliable (but underpowered for sure).
> The worst is the cruise control that tries to stick to the speed limit -- but its sensors don't always read the signs very well
I would assume all such cars have an option to turn this off.
We have an 80 kph sign about 6m after the autoweg sign (100kph), why they didn't combine them is anyone's guess. My detection system always misses it, and often there are speed checks. Fortunately I can disable sign recognition for the cruise control.
Wait does your cruise control automatically accelerate by default when it thinks it sees a sign..? That sounds terrifying! I've only seen systems which give you a prompt to switch speed which you can accept with a button
It BS article, no cameras pointed at your face are required. They require "Advanced Driver Distraction Warning System", don't specify how it should be implemented.
Here's the text describing the system: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg_del/2023/2590/oj/eng
It specifically mentions that it is illegal to use the cameras from such system to identify the person. It is pretty much the opposite of what people think its going to do.
I am sorry you don't like that its not 1984 law but the discussion is bullshit, which means in that instead of 1984 dystopia we are getting the Brave new world dystopia where bullshit prevails in the brave new world.
I am sick and tired of BS rage bates of the endless entertainment; I would take 1984 dystopia anytime, at least we would know who the bad guys are.
Same here.
I drive a 1991 Honda Prelude and I don't think I'll want to drive anything else probably ever.
93 Honda Civic here. 100% agree. I don't appreciate anything on a car that does stuff on its own without my direct input.
I have a Volkswagen ID3, I love the adaptive cruise control. Yes, it gets it wrong in some spots (signage isn't great here in Asturias, Spain), and it gets it wrong in both directions (too slow at certain locations, too fast in others).
But I still appreciate the convenience of not having to keep an eye on the speed nor the distance between the my car and the vehicles in front of me when driving on the freeway, where it generally doesn't make mistakes.
I drive a Nissan Ariya sometimes, which has adaptive cruise control. It's ... okay, but I'm not sure my own car's "dumb" cruise control is any worse to be honest.
My own car's cruise control is just three large buttons on the steering wheel: one which says "keep going this speed when I take my foot off the gas", one cancel button, and one "go back to the previous speed" button. It works wonders and is quite comfortable to use. Never messes up, I can rely on it 100% to do its one simple job.
The Ariya is much more fancy, but it's so much less reliable. If it's snowing outside it sometimes just randomly turns itself off because sensors got covered in snow, leading to a rapid deceleration until I intervene. Sometimes it refuses to turn on because sensors are covered in snow. And its braking curve is uncomfortable; when the car in front stops (e.g in stop and go traffic), it gets way close to the car in front and brakes hard, instead of slowly coming to a stop at a comfortable distance. Oh and it's connected to the nav system; I've had it just suddenly slow the car down to a crawl because the nav system had chosen a stupid route, it slowed down to take an exit while I stayed on the highway.
I'll take dumb but reliable any day over smart and unreliable. Even if it means I sometimes have to actually adjust speed myself.
Relatedly, I don't actually mind having to drive the car. I like cruise control because my foot gets fatigued when pressing the gas pedal for hours on end, but making manual adjustments to my speed? Changing gears? Listening to the engine to make sure it's at a happy RPM? I feel like that stuff just gives me small stuff to do so I keep paying attention to the driving.
The incessant beeping in modern cars on the other hand is just a distraction. Luckily, the Nissan lets you configure it so that 2 quick button presses on the steering wheel disables all the useless alarms. I'm so happy I don't have to do that manually for each "safety" feature every time I get in.
The stuff BMW ships is great. The ACC that I tried in a normal Toyota a few years ago was way worse. I'm a huge ACC fan but it really woke me up that I need to evaluate the vendors before I purchase the car.
I have a CRV with adaptive cruise (USA) and while the car reads the speed limit signs it only uses them for display. There are instances where it misreads signs which is understandable because some of the road signs are very similar or the posted speed only applies to trucks ect.
But it does not adjust based on the reading, I manually set the speed but of course it'll slow down if there's a car in front. Automatically adjusting to the speed limit sounds insanely dangerous. It's very common place, at least in the US, to go 10 over the posted limit on controlled access highways, does the EU not operate in a similar mode?
But you do have to keep an eye on those things. It can make the adjustments but you can't take your eye off them.
I just drive my car because you have to pay attention anyways. No cruise control, nothing.
> lane assist
I prefer the term "lane insist"
> I find them very annoying
I cannot tell you how many times I've punched the steering wheel. I want to find that source of beeping and rip its goddamn guts out of the system. Then I want to find who put it there and rip their guts too. I will rip their infernal existence out of this dimension.
And fuck cameras. Blatant privacy violation, how is this getting past legislation?
Legislation isn't for your personal benefit, silly. It's for the corporations.
Last year, I rented a Kia. I was coasting downhill on a curve and approached a group of bikers. Everything was fine. I was a little below the speed limit, they were in the bike lane, I was in my lane, it was a sunny day. The car detected them as a hazard to avoid and STRAIGHTENED AND LOCKED MY STEERING WHEEL in the middle of the curve turn. I ran into a shallow ditch, but holy shit, what if it took control and over corrected onto an oncoming car?
> on a curve
O yea, that is driver lane assist ... A Toyota rental had the same issue. In a specific steep exit corner (that goes up facing the sun), how many ** times the lane assist tries to force the car to go straight (as in, off the hill! ). The first few times when it happens, scares the ** out of me.
Another fun one is going down a hill in a Rental Opel, roundabout with some cars, no problem. Slowing down naturally, while i see the cars accelerate to enter the roundabout. No need to break as by the time i get close, the cars will have started to accelerate. So my speed will have matched the last vehicles speed by the time i am close. Suddenly, emergency break slam on !!! Because "the car was going to hit the cars in front". Like, wtf!! That created a extreme dangerous situation if there was a car behind.
I really see no benefits for a lot of those new safety features. The old ones like traction controle etc, great, keep them. But all this external monitoring, internal monitoring ... If your a safe driver, those features can make it more dangerous.
But to be honest I bought a VW Polo this year, in february, it's amazing, it's invasive, but full of optionals, sensors, and comforts
I was a bit scared by reading on internet people complaining about cars full of electronics, it's been a bless for me, for real
useful context, I live in Naples, Italy, it's a city made for horses
The good news is that by making cars more trouble than they're worth, this may speed us closer to walkable, bikeable neighborhoods that can only be reasonably navigated on foot or by bike, connected by extensive public transit networks (which already do track where you're going).
The intrusiveness of these systems varies significantly between manufacturers. Don't buy one with an annoying, intrusive system.
Most of the rentals around my neck of the woods are VWs or entry-level Mercedes. The two seem approximately equally bad; they both have the exact same problems with cruise control, lane assist beeps, speed limit beeps, "take a break!" beeps, and so on.
I've heard that Dacia has some models that are like 2008 throwbacks, with "modern" annoyances kept to a bare minimum, but they're considered too low-market for the rental companies, I suppose. I'd consider that sort of thing if I were looking to buy a new car, money no object.
But really a well-maintained vehicle that's ~15-20 years old suits me just fine.
Ever driven a Dacia? I had one for a rental in Portugal. Honestly the least comfortable and most irritating vehicle I've ever driven. I'm not just being fussy, we've had plenty of Hyundais, Citroens and the like without a problem.
Same place (and only place) I've driven one. Easy stick shift, a bit underpowered for the more mountainous highways, but it was a good ride.
There is a minimum intrusiveness required by law, though. One could even say it's intrusive by design, depending on your perspective
OP said after 2008. There are many cars made after 2008 that do not have intrusive systems. For example, my 2018 Camaro has none of that. The only proximity sensors it has are side vehicle indicators and all they do is turn on a light.
New cars with intrusive driver monitoring alerts are obviously going to be terrible but you can still buy vehicles made prior to this change.
Well yeah, that's the point. They want to enshitify cars and make driving as expensive and as annoying as possible to force people out of cars. They know they can't just ban cars outright, so they enshitify this little thing this year, mandate this other thing the next year, add a new tax/fee the next year, add a new restriction the next year, reduce speed limits the next year, etc., etc., all in the name of safety / "save the kids", until decades later they finally get to where they want to be.
You had a point until
> to force people out of cars.
All that stuff following is also nonsense.
“They” don’t want people out of cars, the companies want that sweet sweet revenue stream from vacuuming up data. That’s all this is
Yeah. Whenever someone starts explaining to me that "they" - meaning some vague and undefined cartel - want you to (blank) I immediately flag their reasoning as suspect until proven otherwise. More often than not it's indicative of a lack of serious critical thought.
Examples include some version of "They want us to act like slaves" or "They want to control our minds".
More often than not the simplest explanation is short-sighted profit motive, or institutional dysfunction, or multiple parties with conflicting motivations with no central agenda. It's far less likely to be a grand coordinated conspiracy.
Who is "they"?
What is their motive for wanting to "force people out of cars"?
The “green movement” and “the environment” but mostly a desire for control. Why should people be able to own private property like cars, we should all be using government owned means of transportation in our new socialist utopia.
You forgot the bike lanes that take up road space but nobody uses. Every socialist mayor's favorite anti-car policy.
That's the classic. City is not friendly to bikes or peds, they add bike lanes, city is not friendly to bikes peds or cars.
Cars aren't friendly to cities
>You forgot the bike lanes that take up road space but nobody uses.
Where I live (city in the PNW), bike lanes see heavy use year-round.
Where I live there lots of little hills: the city is made of lots of hills. Even with electric bikes, it's really horrible to drive in the city.
But you see bicycles on the bike lanes, lots of bicycles. When it's summer time and when it's not raining.
Otherwise the people are all in their cars.
Lane assist is also genuinely dangerous when there's men at work on the road and they change the lanes, yet the car tries to stick to the painted ones and I have to fight the car to do what it has to do we don't kill nobody.
Also happens it gets confused with freshly painted white/yellow lines when older are still visible.
I have a dodge ram (work provided truck) with lane assist. I had it completely disabled for two years because it was awful and possibly dangerous as you mentioned, though I’d enable it on rare really long multi-hour drives across states. Fortunately the button to turn it off stayed that way instead of having to set it every start.
This year I never turned it off. I’m guessing they updated the algorithm because it seems a lot more subtle, I don’t feel it being aggressive like before. When I deliberately cross the line (which happens a lot right now, lots of summer road fixing going on) I don’t notice it fighting me.
Tell me you live in a civilised country without telling me you live in a civilised country.
Over here, in Greece, whenever you try to avoid a pothole, a double-parked car, a cyclist, a pedestrian, a stray, ANYTHING, lane assist always tries its best to make you hit whatever you're trying to avoid.
When I loved in Guam we had a joke bout this:
How do you tell if someone is driving drunk?
They are driving straight!
With the unspoken part being anyone NOT drunk was weaving to dodge debris, potholes, etc.
Earlier this year, I rented a new Toyota Camry (US model). It had lane assist, but it was very easy to override it. I didn't really have to fight it. (And that was nice. I've drive other cars where it was more of a battle.)
So, yeah, it's done badly some of the time. But it at least can be done well.
I don't know, even if it's not that forceful, sometimes I have a light touch on the wheel and I'm going straight, I don't want to suddenly have to fight the car swerving me onto oncoming traffic.
yes I can't understand how anyone buys these
Because there is nothing else left to buy.
I only buy second hand cars but sooner or later I'll have to buy a post 2026 car.
New cars are UX nightmares. I'm driving an electric Toyota bz4x. Lovely mechanics, but the general UX (some are because of Android Auto) is terrible. The remote's lock/unlock don't do anything when the car is on. Example: I'm by the trunk and it won't open unless I go back to the driver's door and unlock the doors. App's remote function has too many conditions to do anything. For instance, I'm resting in the back seat and want to turn on the car for some air conditioning, but it says: the doors should be locked, the key fab should be out of the car to start the car.
I'm listening to an audio through a webpage, as soon as I change the volume it starts my last music. This is really annoying. I should guess the right volume, unlock my phone, resume my audio. Old physical volume knobs only changed the volume, not start one of the few apps they know about.
Oh and if I've been listening to loud music and now someone's in the car, I can't lower the volume without starting the music. I want to start with a low volume and then increase it.
These are some of the many stupid UX decisions. I would still not drive an old car. Especially ICE. But would pray that the equivalent of Frame.work appears, I can get an open source car with an open source infotainment.
With Chevrolet starting to sell DIY EV packages and the general simplification of the mechanics of EV cars, I believe such a thing would eventually happen.
After seeing kia evs and having a Tesla. Its the only good EV brand because the software from everywhere else is a complete joke.
Kia will tell me my doors are unlocked when I'm at home.
Tesla has a set home feature. Plus the 50 other annoyances.
Regen doesn't even persist with kia. You have to press the paddle to add it every time you start the car.
All this to say, the only good ux car anymore is tesla. Too bad they leak all recordings and have privacy problems too.
Sigh, I’m so afraid you’re right, since I don’t want to buy a Tesla for values reasons. I wonder if Rivian will be competitive on the software front?
You mean the bZ4X. It wasn't enough that the name is incomprehensible, they also capitalized it incomprehensibly. I think the primary goal of that car was to see how few they could sell, so they could go back to hybrid and hydrogen.
New Teslas are not a UX nightmare... go test drive a Kia, Hyundai, Toyota, GM, etc, then lastly a Tesla. Come back and tell me which car has the best software.
That's because you bought a car from a company which places UX at the bottom of their list. On top of that, even if they place it high on their list, they are simply incompetent at it.
All of the things you described work perfectly as you'd expect from good UX pov on a Tesla. And Rivian should not be far behind either.
Ford has had that since Blue Cruise 2.0, or thereabouts. It really shocked me how often it catches my attention being diverted. Things like talking to my passengers, adjusting the climate controls, or eating- I'm not even talking about 'advanced distractions' like my phone.
It also seemed really accurate. I never remember it beeping at me when I was actually paying attention.
It's totally plausible to me that this kind of nudge will save a lot of lives.
My experience with my Volvo EX30 has been the complete opposite. Although the false positives have gone down with software updates, it's still wrong so often I turn it off every time it bothers me. Due to some other regulation, this setting is unfortunately not remembered. That means every time I get in the car, I have to spend time going trough the settings to disable it, often while already driving. Seems like a great idea.
The biggest false positives involve singing or talking being mis-interpreted for yawning. Which then triggers a notification and a noise telling me "maybe it's time for a beak", which makes me look at the screen in the center console, which then triggers a second notification telling me to "please look at the road".
Great system over all. 10/10 no notes.
Is that the regulation that is bad or the way the manufacturer implemented it ?
I think your comment and the one you were answering to explain it very well.
Don't buy car that sucks.
I'm not sure it's actual regulations, but the Euro NCAP safety tests requiring all these "features" (like not remembering when you turn them off) to get a max score.
And who doesn't want the safest car?
how much have cars safety improved in terms of crashes, airbags, etc, versus the robot will stop the crash?
Impossible to measure, many other uncontrolled variables - esp. significant improvements to infrastructure in Europe, and regulations. Take NL, where a crash involving a pedestrian or a cyclist effectively forces the driver to prove their innocence. I can walk across a Dutch town blindfolded with the biggest risk to my wellbeing being cyclists (well, and the canals). I'd guess the impact of those intervention dwarfs the "i will beep at you until i make you deaf if you don't put your seatbelt over your grocery bag" innovations.
I grew up in/with cars which would score 0 (more like -3 to -5) and made it to adulthood, so I have a feeling that these features are not strictly neccesary.
At the same time what if it saves at least one life a year? (same goes for riding with/without helmets)
My father grew up drinking a ton of alcohol and smoking, like his friends. Many of them are dead.
By your logic, we should keep drinking and smoking.
Sounds about right for Volvo, sadly. I’ve owned four over the years, all great, but my most recent one has such dogshit software that I’ll never buy another Volvo.
What happens if you wear sunglasses?
Normal sunglasses it sees trough, but if you somehow block it, you can't enable some features anymore (pilot assist).
That was different in the early sw versions, where blocking it would simply do nothing, so I had a 3D printed thing to block the camera.
> adjusting the climate controls,
Well if they hadn't removed climate control buttons, this would not be a concern!
Not being able to easily adjust climate settings is very much a safety concern. And the fact that it beeps at you is them acknowledging it!
> It also seemed really accurate. I never remember it beeping at me when I was actually paying attention.
This is the exact opposite of my experience! The one time I tried BlueCruise, it went into "panic mode" every time I turned my head to check my blindspots.
It gives me false positives when I'm holding the wheel at the top and my wrist is blocking line of sight from the camera. On the other hand, sunglasses have never tripped it all.
Owned a Ford Mustang Mach-e with BkueCruise for about 3 years now. No obvious false alarms about missing attention. Interestingly, it doesn't get confused by my sunglasses and still catches me looking aside for too long. I think it is a rather good implementation overall.
good way to get notification fatigue and tunnel vision. look ahead, ignore everything else and have a shocked pikachu face when you sideswipe someone because you're well trained to not check your blind spots
I need to call bullshit on this. I own the same system and it totally allows looking around for normal driving. Stare to the side or the center console for more than a few seconds and it will alert you - exactly at the point where it becomes recklessly unsafe to do so.
> It also seemed really accurate.
It's really not. When I'm cruising on the highway I like to rest my right wrist on the top of the wheel, which blocks the sensor.
"Watch the road"
"Watch the road"
"Watch the road"
My Subaru Solterra / Toyota bz4X is the same way.
The Kia Niro EVs I drive at work have something that apparently detects driver fatigue. I don't know what sets it off but it starts beeping at fire alarm levels and makes the huge LCD constantly flash up warnings, usually before I've even left the yard. There doesn't appear to be a way to turn it off or stop it, so you just have to put up with a constant "BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING" for the whole journey.
Eye tracking
I used to eat all the time while I was driving my car. I mean, why not, right?
Then in 1997, I was stone-cold homeless, hitting rock-bottom, but I was still holding on to my analog cell phone, my 21-speed bike, my kite collection for the beach, and my 1988 black Integra with moonroof.
So of course on day-release from the homeless shelter, I went to the neighborhood Burger King drive-thru, for a double Whopper with cheese, large fries, and large Dr Pepper or something.
And as was my custom, I shoved that Dr Pepper cup right next to the parking brake and I took off at 30mph to eat my fries on the way back.
So as I passed a 2-way stop sign, a black Porsche 928 ran his stop sign, and t-boned me in broad daylight. And my Dr Pepper splashed all over everything, man. And then the driver stopped and he managed to make me hand-write a note that I signed to accept all responsibility and liability for the accident.
And then my insurance company phoned me to tell me that was a dumb move, legally speaking, but they still went through subrogation and recouped even my deductible from that Porsche jerk.
So my car was totaled that day and towed off to the scrap yard, but at least I had a really awful cheeseburger. Crying shame about my lost soda.
Should have rolled the cost of the soda into your damages in the lawsuit.
I honestly have zero idea how this is at all related to the story at hand, but the surfeit of unnecessary specific details is both enjoyable and making me slightly suspicious that this is AI :)
"The cars have all have cameras checking for bad behavior, why shouldn't your phone and laptop?" said the esteemed lawmaker.
"Oh course there will be exceptions for politicians and authorized individuals, for national security reasons."
I think part of this acceptance of the "well if it saves one [usually child's] life..." - it's extremely powerful but is deceptive as it devalues the value of freedom (or some similar trait).
I love the warning about not having hands on the steering wheel.
It goes off all the time. And each time, my hands are on the steering wheel.
It doesn't actually detect contact - it checks to see if you're actively adjusting the steering wheel.
Except I don't need to! The lane keep assist is so good that it's rare I have to give it additional help.
So - I kid you not - I've gotten used to giving a nudge to the steering wheel every so many seconds to prevent that warning (you cannot disable it).
Imagine a car gave you cruise control, and then checked if you were paying attention by requiring you to press down on the accelerator every so many seconds. Does that make sense?
I do this too. Want to get a comma.ai device just so I don’t have to wiggle the steering wheel.
To start your car please look into camera and repeat: "Doritos™ Dew™ it right!"
Brawndo is what your body craves. It's got electrolytes!
You mean that it's got what plants crave.
Don’t forget to drink a verification can.
"Doritos™ just Dew™ it™!"
This driving session brought to you by your friends at PepsiCo. There's a Buc-ee's on your route. Would you like to add a stop to grab a cool refreshing 44 oz Mountain Dew Code Red?
If I hate anything about the EU, its the morons writing regulations for cars. My car constantly distracts me with some beeps, sometimes loud enough to be dangerous. Its surely one of the reasons far right is on the rise -- with things like 'drivers party' in some European countries winning serious votes. I spend 1-2hrs in the car each day, and I hate what those regulations did to driving.
(Worst offenders: Japanese cars since they seem to take the regulations most seriously. Least annoying: generally BMW, Volvo, though they are both getting worse each year).
I was recently in the Uk and one of the cars I was in would alert the driver if he was over the speed limit. Fair enough. But the alert itself is distracting. Are we to review every single alert from these cameras? Is that not just another distraction?
if you watch European car enthusiast review videos, they nearly all start by showing what's required to disable all of the nannies.
There’s usually some kind of short cut action to disable that for the car. In a Mercedes you hold the volume down button in the steering wheel for 3 seconds and it “updates settings” which is basically disabling that annoying feature.
They’re almost always wrong too, so they just beep at you for going over 50 when you’re in a 90 zone
Easy solution: pay attention to the goddamn road.
I've literally had my vehicle alarm and tell me to keep both hands on the steering wheel when I had both hands on for a long time. My biggest concern is where do false alarms take us in the not-too-distant future? Inept sensing -> you can't drive.
It's very hard to do that when every few seconds some new alarm goes off and some big red flashing warning on the TV screen that's blocking your view of the road comes on.
Sounds like you aren't driving very well then. Have you considered taking a taxi instead?
This hyperbole is barely worth responding to. If someone really triggers alerts on such a regular basis, then I have to question whether they have a road legal driving style based on the quality and accuracy those assistants actually have now achieved.
Oh, and the dashboard in my newest car is smaller than any dashboard with analog needles could ever have been. Dashboards probably have gotten smaller, not bigger with the switch to LCD screens.
Perhaps not everyone should be driving? This is not a criticism towards you, I don't have the patience to be behind a wheel, and I know of many drivers that are a danger to themselves and others. If the side effect of this system is that there are fewer people driving because they can't manage the alarms, then that's good enough for me.
Europe gave us cookie popups on every website, and now... in Europe you get a camera watching you in your own car while driving.
Does it at least have more cupholders for your verification cans?
"Mountain Dew is for me and you!"
I have a 2012 Skoda Yeti, 170000 miles. Serviced every year, never had anything go wrong with it yet. If it starts costing me money I will buy a 2012 Skoda Yeti from Autotrader with 50000 miles on the clock. At my age that should just about do me :)
I have a manual 2003 Golf TDI (purchased in 2003; has a tape deck!) that's slowly rusting, and I'm not looking forward to when I have to replace it.
I don't have a garage/drive way, and so have to park on the street, which makes me leans towards another short [1] vehicle: currently thinking about VW Golf, Mazda 3, Mazda CX-30, Kia Niro.
From what I've seen from almost all cars, lots more screens and lots fewer buttons.
[1] https://www.carsized.com/en/
Yeah I have 2002 Honda accord and I’m dreading the day I need to get a modern car. My wife has a 2021 car and there is not a single feature it has that is necessary. In fact, many of them are actively bad. I’ve been driving every day, accident free, for 20 years and have never once needed lane assist, attention tracking or whatever the fuck. I wish there was a car that just had no additional ‘features’ beyond actual mechanical/efficiency improvements.
thankfully most of the mid-2010's I've driven haven't been bad
Then these features are not for you.
They are for your kids when a distracted driver would crush their small skull with a 3T SUV.
"self-driving safeguards fooled by $30 doll heads" https://electrek.co/2026/06/15/chinese-drivers-plastic-heads...
And you can bypass a seatbelt warning by just plugging in a buckle without the belt, but most people don't bother. It's not worth the inconvenience to circumvent, so it still has a positive impact on safety.
A shocking fraction of people will simply ignore the seatbelt beeping for the entire drive
Go in a car from 1970 and try the seatbelts.
I can see why people didn't want them.
I too would rather not have a stiff blade like plastic meterial nearly cut my head off everytime the car breaks.
By comparison today we have luxurious silk strands that don't pinch anywhere.
Seatbelts are actually heavily enforced around the EU, most people would rather just belt up than pay the fine.
Toyota... When we look after a dog for a few days for a friend, it beeps. When I put shopping on the back seat, it beeps. Drives me wild. It "beep... beep... beep..." for a minute then "BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP".
I wouldn't get another because of how annoying that is.
I once made the mistake of renting one of those cars, putting my backpack and some groceries behind me, and driving straight onto a freeway. This absolute sh*tbox was beeping so loud I was afraid for my hearing. I drove some 10 miles like this before I could pull over and move the things. I'd not set foot in one of those cars ever again (same goes for Lexus). I was dreaming of really bad things happening to people who thought it was a good idea to emit series of very loud beeps while the car is driving.
In the event of a serious accident police will likely check to see if it was tampered with and so sentence will be more severe
Uh, oh! That's great. Need to get an Arnold Rimmer or Captain Kirk one.
Of course, one wonders what the car does if the camera is blocked with a post-it. Will it just not work, or fall back on something else, like pressure at the steering wheel, like Tesla does ?
Goal - make driving so annoying that customers will be begging for fully self driving cars!
This is why I like modern Renaults/Dacias. They all come with a single button to turn all of this stuff off, or to a preset of your choosing. No need to fiddle with a screen, nothing you cannot disable. Bliss.
What prevent you from putting a sticker over it ? 0.1€ cost, can be removed in case of control otherwise you can pretend the camera wasn't working.
End of story...
Honestly, I'm all for more automated system while driving because I drive but I also bike and walk. Some people are complete nuts that shouldn't have their license and the least you can do is hold their hand, with as much algorithm as you can, like they are toddlers driving a 3 Tonne car.
> What prevent you from putting a sticker over it ?
Because it'll beep.
That sounds like a hardware issue that might be soluble in "wire cutters and a bad attitude", or at minimum "hot air resoldering station, microscope, and a bad attitude". I wonder what their software stack is like, too.
Weird dark surveillance state stuff. I thought EU was trying to champion privacy?
Those are the same insane morons who came up with the cookie consent. Cottage industry of lawyers that push for those regulations and then collect lucrative retainers from companies wishing to not be fined. One of the reasons EU is so hopelessly behind on any innovation.
The EU wants to be the only one who spies on its citizens.
I have no idea how well such a system works, but, I found these lines pretty jarring:
> They found it fires on ordinary driving, not just distracted driving.
> Glance away from an empty highway to take in the scenery, or look at the infotainment screen to change a song, and the warning goes off anyway.
Like, isn't that the point, that if you aren't looking at the road it should go off?
It's bad though because glancing at your side-view mirrors is good, but this will train drivers out of it by beeping at them because their eyes aren't perfectly forwards-facing.
It's an overly simplistic solution to a complex problem, that also coincidentally helps advance the surveillance state more than it does help prevent distracted driving.
I love driving.
But my 12 lb bucket of brain cells guiding itself, and other lives, is the wrong tool for the job of staying in between the two bright lines.
Self-driving, here we come.
The regulations are great, in theory. In practice, I've noticed that implementation of the technologies are lacking. So on paper, lane keeping will keep you on the road when distracted. In practice, it does not. You'll be beeped at a million times, though.
I have two vehicles with lane keeping (a 2017 Chrysler and a 2025 Ford). Both of them work quite well. The system in the Chrysler will nudge you back if you drift outside of your lane, while the system in the Ford will do that plus automatically stay centered in the lane when cruise control is active.
I have driven vehicles that have lane departure warnings without lane keeping, and they're much less useful.
Maybe I drive more defensively than most but I almost never drive in the center of the lane unless I am in a ‘middle’ lane with lanes on either side. I drive with my tire riding the correct side of the solid line demarcating the shoulder, people (especially pickups hauling trailers, pro semi drivers are usually good) are really bad at staying in their lanes so I sometimes drive onto the shoulder to prevent an accident in the case of another driver lane drifting and overcorrecting.
I typically stay in the middle of the lane, but will drift to one side when I'm passing a vehicle that is wider or potentially erratic. I've never noticed lane-keeping fighting me when there's a car next to me; I wonder if they use the blind spot sensors to detect when to give some leeway in these situations.
My Tesla is quite accurate about whether I'm looking at the road or not. What car specifically had this issue?
That's the trouble with automating cars - being quite accurate is not really that great over 100k miles. On Tesla's specifically I find the "hands on wheel" attention detection a bit iffy.
For FSD, at least in the US they long dropped the hands on the wheel thing, unless the attention monitoring isn't functioning. At least the folks I know that have it, they absolutely love it.
The current docs still say issues with the camera detection results in the hands on wheel prompts https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/2017_2023_model3/en_us/GU... but yes, it was nice when they removed the requirement to have the hands on the wheel even when the camera was working right.
I liked the Tesla progress & road trips but my real bar for joy is the Waymo style promise/start of delivery. There's no fallback to wait for improvement there, either it does everything it promises or it doesn't do anything!
How are they great?
lane assist is fundamentally an unsolvable problem with just a cheap camera, it's in the same category as autonomous driving, that's what these stupid legislation do not get.
Anybody who drove in a construction area with messed up / duplicated lanes can attest how this kind of software stuggles.
It seems like you are being downvoted but I've had the exact issue you mention where there is heavy over-banding on the road surface. Or where you try to move out to overtake a cyclist and it decides to correct you back into lane.
This feels like a regulation whose effectiveness will expire in the next couple of years (as driverless cars become the norm), but which will set a precedent that this is the norm. This with the EU chat control coming up really set a tone.
Smart cars are the new Smart TVs
I purchased a new a hybrid car a year ago. It is impossible to deactivate permanently speed limit and lane alerts. They are useless, dumb and dangerous if you ask me. Detecting a 40km/h on the highway from a road sign on a near by road it's not safety. It's been a year of touching and correcting touches for disabling these two alerts, of course you have to do more clicks no way of accessing it from a quick menu or from quick actions on the steering wheel. The car works perfectly but this thing is so annoying to me that I'm seriously thinking of selling it. The touch screen is slooooow, when the internal temperature is higher is even more slooow for a ui that should be 1200fps for what it does even on a underpowered throttled by heat waves board chip. I either sell the car of take my time and find a way to hack that damn firmware. This is not the way to go, the way to go is autonomous driving not all this annoying BS
This is already in Teslas for supervised self driving, not sure what the big deal is. People can be very distracted while driving and the Tesla OS makes sure to let them know.
Any one knows what happens when duck tape is being used to cover the camera?
Not sure about the systems on cars in the EU, but I got a loaner 2025 Hyundai Tuscon when my EV was in the shop. It had some driver attention monitoring feature with a camera above the steering wheel staring me in the eyes. I covered it with a piece of black electrical tape. It popped a little warning on the main display (IIRC, a crossed out eye, but maybe I'm confusing with Subaru Eyesight) when the car first started up, showing that the camera wasn't working, then proceeded to be silent for the rest of the drive.
I dunno if that'll fly going forward. I know I'll test it in every new car with this feature that I test drive though!
Expect an error but this will depend on the brand.
"Smudging" is a common trick. Just dab some face oil on the lens, just enough so it can't get detail but not so much that the system can tell there's a covering.
You can deactivate it, but has to be on every car start. It's so annoying having to tur off all that crap every single trip.
Sometimes i forget the lane assist ON and get nudged randomly at high speeds, so so scary.
Maybe you'll be able to buy a box to plug into the CAN bus and simulate pressing the button to deactivate it. Sorta like the auto-stop eliminator for that horrid feature (which saves less than 5 gallons of gas per year in my dad's Subaru - thankfully mine is one year too old for that).
Those nudges are gentle and totally safe in every car I've ever had. And no "random" nudges outside road construction work with dubious lane markings where you need to have a grip on the wheel anyway. A regular firm grip always overrides lane keeping.
I mostly agree in my 2024 Ioniq 5, but not in my 2019 Subaru Outback. You can definitely override the lane keep if you have a firm grip and are ready for it, but it tries to throw me off the road often enough that I don't use it anymore.
The scariest was when I had to swerve into another lane to avoid some trash that was sticking into the road from the highway. It tried to force me back into it twice! Luckily I was ready but it gave me a fright for sure.
Time to start jailbreaking car software
Car starts quacking at you
Phone use whilst driving is a huge problem so not surprised.
That is a good initiative however what ever data is being recorded needs to kept in a responsible and safe manner
I laughed. Thanks!
Modern cars are user hostile
(laughs in American)
Gadget Idea: Small display with a lens that can be mounted over the camera that hooks into the material around it, plays an AI generated video of $RANDOM_CELEBRITY singing karaoke off-key and driving very carefully.
I am unsure what would be the most annoying song for the remote viewers to listen to when off-key.
The headline is wrong. The article and the headline seems to be written in a way to cause outrage by giving the impression that the EU requires cameras which should be recording your face all the time and storing/sending it to authorities or something but what the EU actually requires is "Advanced Driver Distraction Warning System" which may be implemented using cameras and no recording or transmitting is required, in fact actually recording and transmitting would be a problem with GDPR.
This is what we call a slippery slope
Nope, that's not what we call slippery slope. This system does not require data recording or sharing, does not require cameras.
Once the camera is there, the temptation to use it for more things will become irresistable.
I don't think it's misleading at all. Is it a camera that's aimed at your face? It seems like it.
Nope, the laws require Advanced Driver Distraction Warning System and does not require cameras aimed at your face.
Also, cameras are receivers. Nothing happens when cameras are aimed at your face, it is only significant when you are interested with the received image and it actually nothing happens, it is processed on device to see if you are tired/distracted/asleep.
Here is the actual text: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg_del/2023/2590/oj/eng
They mention that cameras are required when testing the systems compliance but does not specify how these systems should work.
I remember the brief period when they told us that the self service checkout weren't recording video. Then they just said oh actually they do now and nobody battered an eye lid
If the tech is put there it's just a matter of time. They can't resist
I don't know who told you that but maybe it wasn't the EU?
Good thing we have those cookie banners warning us about websites tracking us.
Black vinyl tape over the camera?
You need to splice in a looped recorded video like in a heist movie, otherwise the camera detects blockage from the tape and incessantly beeps
1) Unplug the cellular modem.
2) Unplug the camera or put a piece of blackout tape over the lens.
3) Enjoy!
2.5) Your car doesn’t start
3) Enjoy
I will start now but I think not for long. “For your own safety we disabled your car”.
2.75) Test this during the test drive
3) Do not buy car
3.5) Buy a different car
3.75) There are no different cars
4) Buy an old car from 2014 and maintain it carefully
4.25) Give up driving
4.5) Become a hermit
> I will start now but I think not for long. “For your own safety we disabled your car”.
This is precisely why you should not want an Internet-connected car. It isn't truly yours if it can be "upgraded" behind your back through a backdoor.
It won’t be long until someone finds a way to flash the firmware or install a bootleg sensor or something else. You can already get a lot “chipped” on VAG and BMW cars.
Chances are most manufacturers are going to use a cheap USB camera. Can a raspberry pi emulate webcam? Just place the same video of you diligently staring out of the window on repeat.
And remember to format the car before you take it in for a service.
As a rule, I do my own maintenance or take the car to an independent mechanic. I wouldn't trust a dealer given how misaligned their incentives are with my interests.
Both are illegal.
It's illegal to disconnect the modem? Where?
Ecall is mandatory, you'll eventually fail road safety inspections.
Ok, it's basically illegal then, and also enforced. So guess that "just disconnect the modem" advice is wrong.
Under which juridiction? I doubt it is in any country of the EU.
You absolutely cannot do it with rented or leased cars e.g.
In general tampering with safety equipment is not legal, enforcement is another thing.
I'm not a fan of people giving poor advice online.
Not really, it will still be fully road legal, at least in my EU member state.
I'll keep my 2014 golf mk7 thank you. Euro5, no adblue bullshit. Still gets good mileage, is still cheap to maintain even after 260k km (the biggest expense has been the dual mass flywheel with a clutchpack) and the only high tech feature is a radar based adaptive cruise control.
Considering how many mk7 golfs were made over the years it'll be easy to just get another one for the next decade. I'd also consider the Hyundai ioniq 5 or 6 which have a shortcut on the steering wheel to just disable all the nanny crap.
A mandatory camera and a mandatory modem in every car is a privacy nightmare. The EU does not care about privacy of it's subjects, it cares about control. The US is not much different. It's over for freedom in the west. The frogs are boiling.
I hate this new world we find ourselves in.
And I triple hate that we've helped develop the technology that powers it.
In hindsight, it was inevitable.
"Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them."
I wonder if they also have a seeker pointed at my face then, because I don't want that shining into my eyes.
I seriously can't believe all the commenters here advocating for mandated ability to spy on people
Modern HN is all about the nanny state. If you're doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide ... right? It's not like a future government might decide that just existing as a certain race or accessing health care as a certain gender is a crime...
For those saying "disable all cellular radios", I don't recommend that; you would be in violation of European laws. To quote a previous comment of mine about a similar EU-mandated safety system:
The EU-wide "911 eCall" system records your location at all times and has a cellular modem connected to government systems. It is illegal to disable this system. If you still do so, there are fines, and your insurance is no longer considered fully valid in case of an accident.
Regarding specific legislation, for the Netherlands and our "APK" system, the relevant rule is under "Geluidssignaalinrichtingen en eCall", article 5.2.71 of the APK handboek, issued by our Rijksdienst voor het Wegverkeer.
In the EU, automatic surveillance cameras on the side of the road enforce this APK system, so if you do disable the eCall system, you will fail your APK, and you will automatically receive a fine. Even if you don't leave your driveway, the government is working hard to keep you safe; government camera surveillance cars drive around constantly, scanning your license plates, cross-referencing surveillance images with other government databases to automatically issue fines if you step out of line.
I really don't think there's anything to worry about, though; to quote another comment of mine:
>Thankfully, we're safe. Car software is notoriously high quality and rarely hacked. All governments are fully trustworthy, especially around espionage and privacy, and have a perfect track record of never lying to the public.
>Look, the European Commission stated that it cannot be hacked; "hackers cannot take control of it", from ec.europa.eu. They built an unhackable device. I am not sure what you could be worried about. If the government tells you something cannot be hacked, then it cannot be hacked. Furthermore, none of the EU member states have been found using other infrastructure to violate privacy laws.
my earlier comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45560494
proud to drive 2002 volkswagen golf in these creepy times
Ditto for 1992 Buick, 1996 Toyota. Also 1961 Sunliner, weather permitting.
> On the positive side, the regulations require the ADDW system to work on a "closed loop" without the use of biometric data. lmfao, the regulations required antipollution systems too didn't they ? Even if by some miracle this is the case for all manufacturers I'm betting my first son the software can helpfully be updated to be cloud enabled once insurances companies catch up or regulations are updated for more safety. Hope you like walking a lot.
The EU is quickly becoming the surveillance capital of the world.
For not letting people snooze off behind the wheel?
It's so incredible the difference in mindset across the Atlantic.
In the US, it is MY job and no one else's to make sure I don't fall asleep driving my own car. In the same way it's my job to make sure I don't leave my stove on and burn down the apartment building. Should we also install cameras on every stove in every apartment?
If the US government tried to force-install cameras into our cars to watch us, there'd be a revolution.
Death by a thousand cuts. It never stops at just one thing.
Car: You look tired. There's a motel in 3 miles.
Car: You appear to be suffering from acne. Try Zit-away, available at the convenience store in 2.4 kilometers.
Car: Facial recognition failed. Car is now disabled. Contact your car dealer to reenable vehicle.
Car: You are politically active for the wrong party. Doors locked. Battery will now catch fire.
Do you... not understand what the ADAS system does and how it works?
You have a camera aimed at your face when typing this nonsense post.
That camera isn’t on all the time scanning your face. God knows what sort of sketchy implementations car companies will come up with.
How is the weather in St. Petersburg?
This is not OK.
Maybe I'll get downvoted for being off topic, but when we try to say "EU has too much regulation", this is the kind of shit we're talking about.
Nobody is arguing for zero regulation. But seriously, forcing people to pay extra for their own surveillance in their own car?
Ok I'm a citizen of EU country. I don't consent, I don't agree. I want a car without inside cameras, without systems beeping, blinking, nor vibrating at me. Don't you ever move the steering wheel under my hands. Why I'm screaming into the void?
Thanksfully there are plenty of vehicles in the second hand market.
So, 1. yet another beep/boop in the car contributing to alert-fatigue, and 2. another stream of data inevitably sent off-device and monetized in god knows what ways by god knows which third party "partners".
I'm buying 0 cars with this nonsense. And 0 cars without CarPlay support.
They hate us for our freedom.
Before you comment or engage with the OP, check his comment and submission history. Make of it what you will.
Being concerned about the trend of laws in the EU doesn't make someone a bad actor.
I would rather die in a car crash than get nagged like this. Europe is the nanniest of nanny states, its inconceivable that people actually want to live like this.
Maybe would be the good time to create a company to sell webcam covers for cars...
If its closed looped its great. All cars should also come with alcolocks.
They'll do anything but address the root cause of distractions: the addictive nature of mobile phones/the apps on them
And Europeans think they have privacy lol
Many of these warnings are hazardous, especially in an unfamiliar vehicle. They are extremely annoying and often incorrect. They result in extended periods of distracted driving trying to figure out how to turn off the warning.
I was in a rental car recently that was filled with random chimes going off. I had no idea what any of it meant, but it was sure a nuisance and took my mind off the road.
And here we go again :)
It's good to know that Big Brother cares about all of us.
This sort of nonsense is well studied in aeronautical world, and will lead to too many alerts, which, in turn, lead to predictable outcomes: https://flightsafety.org/asw-article/normalization-of-devian...
Very different threat model though. Commercial aircraft aren't sensitive to keep-your-eyes-on-the-road failures with seconds-scale latencies, airlines require autopilot use, there is a copilot present at all times, the FAA very strictly regulates work hours and substance use, etc...
Sure, don't nag a pilot who is already very well backstopped by the existing solutions. Your uncle coming back from the bar at 2am doesn't have any of that.
This is just more evidence that the GDPR was just a set of protectionist laws for EU companies.
Designing this machine vision system is insurmountable. It will never be actually good at its stated purpose, because how much you can look through some window or glance back at your kids is decided by the outside environment and it will be impossible to fit accurate judgement of it in the computers in the car.
Also, lane assist fucking sucks. It places all cars in the same place on the road, i.e. all wear is in the same place as well, and in relation to the marked edges of the road, which often isn't the natural placing in curves and so on. As a consequence roads likely need maintenance more often, and as a proficient driver that does not let the car have opinions about placement on the road one commonly has much smaller margins when placing the car in the nice trajectory through a curve due to the sunken lanes from the assisted cars.
I have news for you: those systems already exist and they work. The "insurmountable" development work has already been done. How long you can safely look away from the road is determined mostly by physics and has hard bounds. More than ~5 seconds is never OK while the vehicle is on a public road. At speed, a single second can be a second too long. The problem isn't that the road looks clear now. The problem is that this can change instantly, without warning and in the most surprising ways at any moment. A kid running into the road from behind a car, an object falling onto the road, an animal jumping onto the road from the brush/ditch/tree-line... the list goes on. Forcing the driver to pay attention is good. There is no massive situational leeway.
As a pedestrian I love this.
I actually suggested a solution like this 2 years ago, because so many drivers are bad at signaling. I wanted a camera that used machine learning to learn a driver's cues when they're making a turn, and eventually it would be able to activate the signals for the driver.
I'm sick and tired of standing on the side of the road with my dog and waiting for a car just for it to make a turn. FOAD
I am rarely in a rush, if a car signals I will allow it to turn, I will stand back and wait, no problem. But 80% of them are really bad at this.