[SuzukiBrian]

My brand new car has a feature called forward attention warning which is driving me insane. It is essentially a small camera located at the steering wheel column which emit a series of high beeps and have an eye icon blink in the dashboard if the car doesn't think I am looking forward.

Cases in which this can happen. - I orient myself before overtaking another car on the highway or motorway. - I position my hand wrong on the steering wheel and the camera can no longer see me. - I put on sunglasses when I am driving against a low sun.

It can be turned off, but if you live in the EU it is required to enable itself once the car has been turned off/on.

It will also happily warn me if it thinks I am speeding based on errornous gps data. This feature also turns itself back on once the car has been turned off.

[mort96]

There is truly a scourge in the EU of increasingly intrusive "safety features" which I truly believe are making cars less safe.

I've been driving a family member's new Nissan. Nice car for the most part, but it has this "safety" feature (that's on by default and cannot be permanently switched off, thanks to the EU) which watches out for the white stripe on the right-hand side of the road and JERKS THE STEERING WHEEL when it thinks you're "too close".

Where I often drive, there are many narrow roads. No yellow line in the middle of the road. The only way to avoid hitting oncoming traffic is to drive with your wheels on the white stripe when you meet another vehicle. This can be stressful enough in itself, especially when the other vehicle is some huge bus or semi truck. Not exactly the time you want alarms going off AND YOUR STEERING WHEEL TURNING BY ITSELF. I've taken to calling it the car's auto-crash feature. Always gotta remember to disable the auto-crash. Every time I start the car.

I got so annoyed I looked up the relevant directive. Turns out new cars are required to have a lane assist feature. It is required to turn itself on automatically, and it is required to warn the driver using at least 2 out of the 3 methods: sound, visuals, haptic. So the steering wheel jerking isn't even just a bad implementation, it's the law.

Sigh.

[star-glider]

I recently got back from Europe; rented a car. This "feature" is _insanely_ dangerous. Whatever idiot bureaucrat decided that having crappy machine vision software jerk the steering wheel around while you're driving should be sent to an island somewhere.

The damn thing tried to kill me every time we came up on a construction area on the freeway, because it got completely flummoxed by the lane realignment. I couldn't turn it off until we parked the car, and we were on the freeway. Fighting that piece of crap for an hour made for the most exhausting drive of my life.

Far from being mandated, I can't believe that safety regulators allow _anything_ to jerk around the wheel at 60MPH.

[ithkuil]

I was very annoyed about this feature when I first read about it. I don't have it in my car.

But then I rented a Kia which had it. The nudge was very gentle and balanced and it felt pretty much like if the road had a groove or incline. Now, I'm used to driving in places with very bad roads so the feeling was very natural and my instinct was to overcome the steering wheel resistance with a gentle pressure just as you'd do when driving on roads that present those features.

But my eyes were telling me something different: the road was well paved and flat, so I realized it must be this smart feature. I was pleased at the Kia engineers for calibrating the physical response to be not surprising.

My main concern is that you can get used to this feature. The feature is not perfect and doesn't recognize the ends of the lane in many cases so you quickly learn that you can't trust it. But as technology gets better and better the risk of ending up relying on something that can fail occasionally is a serious one

[SuzukiBrian]

It's true, mine has that as well. While I can't turn off the default mode, it is thankfully only visuals and sound. It does however also have the assisted suicide mode, where it will either jerk the wheel or prevent the wheel from turning. Thankfully that can be turned off permanently.

I still find it crazy that these are supposed to be safety features.

[aembleton]

In Hyundais this can be disabled by long pressing on the lane keep assist button on the steering wheel. Its the one with a couple of white lines and a steering wheel between them.

You might be able to do similar in the Nissan.

Of course, you have to do this every time you start the car thanks to EU and UK law.

[wcoenen]

> and JERKS THE STEERING WHEEL

Everybody who first encounters this feature (including me) seems to have the same reaction.

However, if you give yourself some time to get used to it, you'll probably realize that it doesn't actually "jerk the steering wheel" with any significant force.

It's more like a gentle nudge, similar to the effect of highway rutting. If you are properly holding the steering wheel, it will not actually affect the steering direction.

[strbean]

Does the directive specify that haptic warning must mean a steering wheel jerk? Seems like carmakers have 2 alternatives:

1) use sound + visuals

2) use any other form of haptic feedback. Vibrate the steering wheel. Vibrate the driver's seat. Anything but jerking the steering wheel.

[dsego]

Lane assist works perfectly fine on my Skoda (or I have learned to live with it). Basically it doesn't do anything under 50km/h and then above that it will mostly lightly shake the steering wheel if you drive on the line, and it will steer only in extremes to keep me in my lane, eg. driving fast and crossing a double white line or something, which saved me a few time when I was distracted. Also, sometimes I use my blinker when I think it will engage, eg. road works and I need to cross the solid center line into the oncoming lane.

[heeton]

I've test-driven 2 cars in the last 2 years (because I'm environmentally interested in swapping my diesel for an EV), but each time has put me off that entire brand. First was Tesla, I can't stand the full iPad console with no physical controls. (And Elon... but that's a side thread).

Then, Volvo, with blue lights filling the cabin and these types of safety features.

Each time I've come away thinking what a shit-show the car was, and how that seems to be the opinion of the entire company line.

I'm still driving my 15 year old diesel with manual controls and dim orange status lights at night. I just want a simple EV with aircon and speakers with media controls by the steering wheel. Minimal extra bullshit.

[alpaca128]

A relative's Tesla totalled itself because of that feature. It suddenly auto-steered to the side, right beside a concrete barrier. The barrier won.

[reorder9695]

A family member of mine's car has that, I've had similar experiences where (living in a rural area) I've been driving down a 2 lane road with no one else about, seen a puddle or pothole, not wanted to hit it, tried to put the car a bit over the line for that reason and got shoved back by the bloody car thinking it knew better than me.

[monster_truck]

I love when you're trying to navigate through some zig zag construction bullshit and the lane assist keeps fighting you to eat some cones/barrels. It's also fantastic when the lines on the highway are wobbly and it starts trying to drive like a drunk person. All because of people who can't help but use their phones while driving...

E: A 2022 subaru I rented for a long drive was by far the least worst of anything I've driven. I go out of my way to try something new every time I get to rent a car

[strawhatguy]

No matter the supposed safety benefit, the driver should be in control of the car, and it’s notifications, permanently disabling them.

[ZoomZoomZoom]

> a lane assist feature

More like Bike Overtake Prevention System. Unbelievable.

[thedanbob]

I rented a car in the UK a few years ago and by the end of the trip I was ready to set it on fire.

- Adaptive cruise control would randomly slam on the brakes on the motorway (just passed a 30 kph exit, the speed limit must be 30 now!), or match speed with a car in the next lane that was I trying to pass

- Emergency braking would trigger if I got too close to a car that was turning out of my lane, or a shrub while parking

- Lane assist reenabled itself every time I started the car

- Radar system would fail every ~3 starts, which would disable adaptive cruise control (ok) and blast a warning sound (bad)

At least now I know that if I'm shopping for a car in the future, one of my criteria needs to be "won't actively try to kill me".

[phatskat]

I rented a car in the states last time I visited family and it was mostly ok - the touchscreen controlled all the heat/cool through convoluted menus but thankfully had dedicated buttons to kind of control climate?

But worse was it would use a camera to read speed signs and therein we had these issues:

- Misreading signs - Reading signs that didn’t exist - Every time it read a new sign it would “helpfully” yell that I was over the speed limit if for example I was coasting down from a 45 to 35 zone, along with scary flashing visuals on the dash

[morpheos137]

Ren

[BLKNSLVR]

A friend of mine spends the first minute of all trips in their car turning off all the auto-safety BS loaded in by regulation these days. All on by default the next time the car is switched on.

Also, I pretty much wear sunglasses 100% of the time I'm either outdoors or driving. That attention detection is not fit for purpose. Squinting through road glare literally makes me tired.

The dangers imposed on self and society by driving are poorly matched to the requirements of getting a license. Unfortunately participation in much of society requires the ability to drive one's self from one place to another; it's been built around this requirement.

[IshKebab]

I'm generally pro-EU but they sure know how to not fix things by annoying people as much as possible. C.f. the cookie laws, headphone volume warnings, etc.

[SuzukiBrian]

I understand the spirit of the law, but any implementation by the EU feels like making a wish to a monkey paw these day. I would love for people to stop watching tiktoks on their phones while driving on the motorway, but the implementation means that I now get to be constantly distracted by my own car while driving.

[rapnie]

Cookie dialogs easily avoided wherever companies care about their customers/users.

[star-glider]

About the only thing they've gotten right recently was forcing Apple to switch to USB-C.

[idontwantthis]

My subaru will beep and flash a signal to let me know that it can’t see the lanes well enough to use the lane departure warning.

A safety feature takes my eyes and ears off of the road to let me know that it is not keeping me safe for the moment.

[darth_avocado]

My Tesla often beeps loudly at things I have my focus on completely to let me know that I don’t have focus on them, thereby forcing me to look around to see if I missed something and making me lose focus on the thing i needed to focus on.

The one that annoys me the most is the one right near where I live where a wider street becomes a narrower street, which makes my car think I’m going to rear end parked cars at 30mph and always beeps loudly. Even when I know it’s coming, it startles me and makes me lose focus, sometimes when there’s pedestrians trying to cross the street. Very dangerous.

[mdavidn]

On my spouse's 2019 model, I could disable that alert in the menus. Even after I disabled every alert in the menus, the car still emits an urgent tone with an unknown meaning.

[pavon]

I really did like the actual lane-keeping function of my Mom's Subaru when I drove it on narrow two-lane roads, intentionally hugging the outside of the lane when appropriate. The sound it made wasn't annoying or startling, and quickly became another form of situational awareness to let me know that I was indeed near the edge of the road like I wanted to be.

[trinix912]

I've found that disabling the lane assist in my 2020 Civic permanently disables that too. It's an EU model. For anyone looking for a solution, try if this solves it (if you wouldn't miss the lane assist, of course).

[SuzukiBrian]

Unfortunately as I've later learned, it's a requirement in all cars in the EU from 2025, so there is no way to disable it permanently. Thank you for the suggestion though.

[Blackthorn]

In a lot of places in the world you can return new cars. I would return one that did that. Manufacturers won't get the hints until they start seeing returns wreck their bottom line.

[epolanski]

Manufacturers can't do anything about it if it's required by law.

[trinix912]

Wouldn't that wreck your credit score though? Pardon my ignorance.

[UomoNeroNero]

I’ll keep my stupid, non-digital 2010 car running until the day I die. They’ll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands. I’d rather register it as a vintage car and keep driving it.

[userbinator]

Mine is over 50 years old. It's been upgraded with a few "modern" features like distance sensors, rear cameras, and a GPS, but those are actually useful and won't actively fight me.

[vasco]

The assist to keep you in the lane that also auto turns on has been the only cause of 3 near crashes I've had, when renting cars. Never have I even had a slightly dangerous situation other than this bullshit turning the fucking wheel for me. Who the heck thinks that a machine knows best if it should turn the wheel than a human, with eyes, driving? I cannot understand how it ever helped anyone and it's much worse than just a beep, literally trying to steer against you.

[foresto]

This reminds me of how Boeing introduced an automatic nose-down feature in the 737 MAX, meant to compensate for its higher-mounted engines causing nose-up during takeoff. According to a video I saw, they didn't make pilots aware of this change from the older 737, nor train them in how to recognize it or turn it off, and its behavior in response to a bad angle of attack reading turned out to be deadly.

I think this is the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5KQ0g_-qJs

Keywords: 737 MAX MCAS trim

[SuzukiBrian]

I actually knew about this one going in, since it's been a requirement for a bit longer. My Hyundai has two modes, one where it simply beeps if you cross the lines without the turn-signal and the dangerous one where it locks the steering wheel.

Only the slightly annoying beeping one seems to be mandatory, the extremely dangerous steering wheel locking one isn't. Otherwise I wouldn't have bought the car at all.

[burnt-resistor]

> is required to enable itself once the car has been turned off/on

Get an older car. Screw panopticon tyranny.

[alterom]

Thanks, looks like I'll be repairing my 2010 Honda Fit (Jazz in EU markets) forever to avoid getting anything of the sort of antifeatures you describe.

That, or the manufacturers and regulators wisening up, but I ain't holding my breath for that.

Same with touchscreen controls in a vehicle.

[mdavidn]

Honda was still good in recent years. I drive a 2024 Honda CR-V. No tones that annoy me. No interior cameras. All of the important controls are still physical.

[unethical_ban]

It sounds like some of these things need to be disabled by pulling a fuse, or else disabled via button every time the car is on, like a takeoff checklist for an airplane.

I hear a lot of people do that for the auto start/stop feature on cars in the US. And the INEOS Grenadier, which has an alarm go off if it detects you are going above the speed limit. Every time you turn the car on, you have to navigate a touchscreen menu to turn that off.

[xenadu02]

On the Kia EV 9 I had to go in and disable lane assist (which you can still disable here in the US).

It was downright dangerous, jerking the steering wheel at seemingly random times when it gets confused.

[kjkjadksj]

Why not return the car for an actual sane one from 5 years ago?

[SuzukiBrian]

I would, but once I fully understood the problem it was too late to return it. When I got the car I simply turned off the features, and because I don't drive a lot I didn't notice that the car would turn them on again until I was outside the return period.

I really just didn't have the imagination to think that it could possibly be a problem. Even the manual says that it stays turned off once disabled.

[watwut]

I live in EU and my car does not have any of that.

[therein]

Obviously the reason will be revealed as you get into questions like what year was your car manufactured and at which stage of integration is your country.

[SuzukiBrian]

It's required in new cars from 2025 and onwards.

[jollyllama]

Why'd you buy it?

[mort96]

You can't avoid cars with these anti-features if you want a new car. They're required by law in the EU.

[SuzukiBrian]

Because it's otherwise a great car. I did notice the problems during the test-drive, but I figured it wasn't a problem, since it could be turned off in the console. So I turned them off and forgot all about it. I would never have imagined that some obscure EU-regulation, that I've never heard about, would require them to turn back on.