Autocross and Automatic Braking Assist?

"PICKLEBOY" (pickleboy) 03/22/2016 at 08:47 • Filed to: Autonomous, Brake Assist, Automatic, Toyota, 86, FR-S, 4Runner, Lexus, Robot, Autocross, cones, driver, brakes, safety, dangerous, traction control, stability control, control

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With the news of automatic braking assist become a standard “safety” feature for all cars by 2022 and just today Motortrend is reporting that Toyota will have !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! with the exception of the Toyota 4runner, Lexus GX, and more importantly, the 86.

When I first heard about this the first thought that came to my mind was that this could possibly cause some accidents by the car slamming on brakes when not absolutely necessary with sudden braking resulting in someone rear ending you. (obviously, as an engineer myself, engineers think about these things when designing these systems, but just my first thought) It could also open the door for people being more negligent ( !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ) especially in low speed and high traffic environments, conceding that their car will just stop for them.

Then my 2nd thought was, is this defeatable? (i.e. Can we disable it like traction control, stability control, etc.?) If it isn’t defeatable, how would a track day or an autocross go down when the system senses you’re close to a cone (whether you’ll hit it or not) Imagine autocrossing and you’re going through the slalom and your car suddenly slams on brakes when detecting a cone, I can’t imagine any good coming out of that.

If it is possible to turn it off, I’d imagine this would open doors for more law suits if it was found someone caused a bad accident because they had it disabled., but then again I guess the same could be said for traciton/stability controls. These are just my thoughts/concerns on this automatic braking stuff, which I’m sure the Jalopnik writers will write about in the future, but what about you guys?

Do you think these are legitimate concerns? I think we are taking the driver out of the equation more and more and I don’t think that’s the right thing to do, but then again, as a 21 year old, I’ve come to the conclusion that in my lifetime I may see a ban or severe limitation of human drivers on public roads with the advent of autonomous cars... but that’s an entirely different discussion for a different day.

Jayhawk Jake > PICKLEBOY 03/22/2016 at 08:52

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Surely a traffic cone won't set it off. If it does it damn well better be defeatable

PICKLEBOY > Jayhawk Jake 03/22/2016 at 08:57

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The only reason I think it’s possible a traffic cone would set it off is because the system may be designed to stop for children/toddlers as well :/

Patrick Nichols > PICKLEBOY 03/22/2016 at 08:59

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I'd imagine that a cone would be seen the same way as a small rodent would by the car and surely you shouldn't stomp on the brakes for things like that especially with other cars around that won't have these standard features.

itschrome > PICKLEBOY 03/22/2016 at 08:59

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ugh.. that’s the worst.. I mean it’s not like children and toddlers are going to hurt my car.

adamftw > PICKLEBOY 03/22/2016 at 09:04

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The ‘16 BMW X5 XDrive50i (aka the twin turbo V8 el monstro) I drove had an option to turn that stuff off. I’d imagine most cars will.

vondon302 > PICKLEBOY 03/22/2016 at 09:05

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I’m not sure how these work but a little painters tape over the sensor should turn that sucker off.

cazzyodo > PICKLEBOY 03/22/2016 at 09:09

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You’re clearly on team squirrel.

MLGCarGuy > PICKLEBOY 03/22/2016 at 09:13

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I haven’t heard good things about Toyota’s pre-collision system. Some owners report that the car randomly stops for no reason.

jariten1781 > PICKLEBOY 03/22/2016 at 09:15

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Even if there's not a built in disable I'm sure you could just unplug the forward looking sensor and be fine.

PICKLEBOY > itschrome 03/22/2016 at 09:28

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come on now, you know I didn’t mean it that way XD

itschrome > PICKLEBOY 03/22/2016 at 09:37

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haha, I know. couldn’t resist the setup though.

P5guy now GTIguy > adamftw 03/22/2016 at 09:55

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The Mazda 6 and Cx 5 diable the system when the traction control is turned off.

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > PICKLEBOY 03/22/2016 at 11:10

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Forget about things like traffic cones, what happens when the sensors are covered in snow and ice or its raining hard? We just got a new Explorer with the front parking sensors and when they are snow covered it gets super sensitive and starts beeping when you are within a car length or more at a stop sign.

That Bastard Kurtis - An Attempt to Standardize My Username Across Platforms > PICKLEBOY 03/22/2016 at 11:15

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I’d imagine it’ll be defeatable. In the Volvos I'm familiar with, the system is more of a low-speed thing...so track days would probably be okay, but a tight auto-x might present an issue.

PICKLEBOY > You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much 03/22/2016 at 11:33

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That sounds super annoying