Is Adaptive Cruise worth it?

[leszek]

Why are you being a d*** and splicing my quotes together and out of context? Maybe I was asking a serious question.

So again, with all due respect. What driving classes that you've personally taken would you suggest I take?

quotes were not out of context. re-read your original post and my original reply. I'm not trying to be a d***, but honestly I don't want to be on a road with someone who relies on collision mitigation multiple times to save himself. That simply means you're tailgating or worse.

Sponsored

 

[Apwrx]

Nice testimony. Thanks.

But it only will precharge the brakes when you are in ACC, and not when you are not, correct?

I am pretty sure it precharges brakes If acc isn't on. If you are using acc it will apply the brakes to keep distance from car in front.I don't think it will stop vehicle but will slow it down to at least 5mph cant remember exactly it was 7months ago:headbonk: I did test it in various scenarios with my foot hovering over the brake just to see what it'll do. I was impressed enough that I haven't worried using it since.

 

[MontelG]

quotes were not out of context. re-read your original post and my original reply. I'm not trying to be a d***, but honestly I don't want to be on a road with someone who relies on collision mitigation multiple times to save himself. That simply means you're tailgating or worse.

So let me guess, you are the type of person that thinks that seat belts and air bags are a bad thing as well? They obviously lead to dangerous driving, right? You have never been in a single accident in your life? People aren't perfect. Accidents happen. No one is saying that people "rely on collision mitigation" and just drive around with their eyes closed. You argument against collision mitigation technology sound exactly like those that oppose seat belts and air bags.

Technology and tools that saves lives in ACCIDENTS is a good thing! Period! Accidents happen and thousands of people are killed every year in accidents and NOT because some is "tailgating or worse". I am 45 and I have been in two accidents in my life and neither was my fault. Once I was rear ended, which could have been easily avoided if the other car had a collision mitigation system.
The other time I was t-boned going through an intersection when the other person ran the light. That also would have been avoided with collision mitigation. Technology prevents accidents! Period!

 

[Norm Peterson]

↑↑↑ You're giving way too much credit to these active systems. Ultimately, they're limited to the same laws of physics as you are when you're in full control (although in some instances they are better able to manage tire grip).

Believing that active systems are always superior to an alert driver is the sort of fanaticism normally associated with the kind of topic that most forums do not permit.

They are tools. Tools that probably benefit the careless and the distracted more than people who still drive with their mind on the road ahead. Yup, that's a good thing. But that doesn't make it equally good for everybody. In some cases, unexpected system interventions can startle a good driver, possibly into making a mistake that he wouldn't have made otherwise. Do not underestimate or downplay this just because you don't want to hear it. And as long as the programming is "by others", that is going to happen from time to time.

Even ABS - arguably the most mature active safety technology in the bunch - occasionally gets it wrong. Trust me on this.

When December 2016 rolls around, it'll be 50 years since I was in a black ice accident that totalled my car, the other car, and sent both drivers to the hospital. I had a 2-point seat belt. No technology on earth could have prevented that one, short of a forward-facing JATO bottle. This fall it'll be 45 years since an accident in the snow that at best would have involved different cars if various systems available today had been fitted back then. Basically I've been accident-free since before you could walk. Two or three times being lightly rear ended that could have been prevented by such systems in the other drivers' cars still doesn't make them beneficial for me to have them in mine, and a couple of 5 mph parking lot incidents is it.


I'm afraid that relaxing your own vigilance in the belief that technology will always save you is exactly what'll get you T-boned again. Since human tendency is to get lazy about doing things that are frequently done for them, you should right now be expecting that to gradually happen. Only losing your 'edge' is sometimes all that it takes. As I alluded to above, as you start to depend on ACC or any other system to apply the brakes for you, you won't be as quick or as accurate in your "manual" braking when you need to be. There is no way for that to be a good thing.


Norm

 

[Rypkr937]

quotes were not out of context. re-read your original post and my original reply. I'm not trying to be a d***, but honestly I don't want to be on a road with someone who relies on collision mitigation multiple times to save himself. That simply means you're tailgating or worse.

lol. I'm not relying on it. Like I said, I've driven several hundred thousand miles without an at fault accident other than a deer. Have you?

And again, as I said, I have it set to "sensitive". It beeps at me frequently if I driving spirited on a windy road because it sees the turn ahead and views it as a collision.

Maybe I shouldn't have phrased my initial post as I did. I didn't realize it would alarm you so badly, and I hate to see others mad.

 

[leszek]

lol. I'm not relying on it.

In that case :cheers:

 

[B-52 Jetman]

Have it on my wife's new Nissan Murano....worth every penny!

 

[papinist]

I wonder why 'European' Mustangs won't come with AAC/BLIS/Collision warning? European cars usually are the first to have such technology. Volvo and Subaru already have forward warning dectection. It looks several cars ahead rather than just bouncing radar off the vehicle directly ahead of you.

It's a mystery, since other Ford model like euro Mondeo already has it.
I would really pay for having these options.

 

[MontelG]

↑↑↑ You're giving way too much credit to these active systems. Ultimately, they're limited to the same laws of physics as you are when you're in full control (although in some instances they are better able to manage tire grip).

Believing that active systems are always superior to an alert driver is the sort of fanaticism normally associated with the kind of topic that most forums do not permit.

They are tools. Tools that probably benefit the careless and the distracted more than people who still drive with their mind on the road ahead. Yup, that's a good thing. But that doesn't make it equally good for everybody. In some cases, unexpected system interventions can startle a good driver, possibly into making a mistake that he wouldn't have made otherwise. Do not underestimate or downplay this just because you don't want to hear it. And as long as the programming is "by others", that is going to happen from time to time.

Even ABS - arguably the most mature active safety technology in the bunch - occasionally gets it wrong. Trust me on this.

When December 2016 rolls around, it'll be 50 years since I was in a black ice accident that totalled my car, the other car, and sent both drivers to the hospital. I had a 2-point seat belt. No technology on earth could have prevented that one, short of a forward-facing JATO bottle. This fall it'll be 45 years since an accident in the snow that at best would have involved different cars if various systems available today had been fitted back then. Basically I've been accident-free since before you could walk. Two or three times being lightly rear ended that could have been prevented by such systems in the other drivers' cars still doesn't make them beneficial for me to have them in mine, and a couple of 5 mph parking lot incidents is it.


I'm afraid that relaxing your own vigilance in the belief that technology will always save you is exactly what'll get you T-boned again. Since human tendency is to get lazy about doing things that are frequently done for them, you should right now be expecting that to gradually happen. Only losing your 'edge' is sometimes all that it takes. As I alluded to above, as you start to depend on ACC or any other system to apply the brakes for you, you won't be as quick or as accurate in your "manual" braking when you need to be. There is no way for that to be a good thing.


Norm

I guess we will have to agree to disagree. I'm a firm believer that technology saves lives and I will spare no expense when it comes to the safety of my family. I just can't wait for the time when collision avoidance/mitigation technologies are mandatory like air bags and seat belts so those that think they are faster that a computer don't have a choice. The rest of us mere mortals on the road will be safer for it.

 

[Norm Peterson]

We've had different experiences, so different conclusions should perhaps be expected.

I've had both ABS and stability control systems intervene inappropriately, and I know for a fact that Ford's Advancetrak has had a few fairly serious problems with false activations. So I won't completely trust any new system to not screw up on occasion.

Even when they're working as they should, they represent artificial nonlinearities in your controls on the occasions when they do step in. This matters, well, at least it does if that's what you're paying some attention to as you drive in anything but a straight line at constant speed. Linearity is how you trust your car to do what you tell it to do, and how you know what to be telling it in the first place.

If my driving record was littered with incidents that these various systems might have avoided or at least mitigated, I'd more than likely feel differently about them. And I'd probably feel unqualified to do track days at anything faster than legal highway speed behind a pace car.

Just in this thread, we have been informed that one of these systems really doesn't know how to deal with the turns on a winding road other than to sound an alarm. At some point, you'd start to ignore it, at which point it starts becoming useless and essentially worthless. Remember, these systems have been designed by . . . people. People just as fallible as you and me.

It's not that I'm against all technology - I'll take whatever improvements in car structure, suspensions, brakes, and wheel & tire packages are available (and after putting some thought into it fix whatever I feel needs further development). You wouldn't mind me being in your vicinity at all, in any of my current cars, set to the way I drive them.


Norm

 

[bluebeastsrt]

So let me guess, you are the type of person that thinks that seat belts and air bags are a bad thing as well? They obviously lead to dangerous driving, right? You have never been in a single accident in your life? People aren't perfect. Accidents happen. No one is saying that people "rely on collision mitigation" and just drive around with their eyes closed. You argument against collision mitigation technology sound exactly like those that oppose seat belts and air bags.

Technology and tools that saves lives in ACCIDENTS is a good thing! Period! Accidents happen and thousands of people are killed every year in accidents and NOT because some is "tailgating or worse". I am 45 and I have been in two accidents in my life and neither was my fault. Once I was rear ended, which could have been easily avoided if the other car had a collision mitigation system.
The other time I was t-boned going through an intersection when the other person ran the light. That also would have been avoided with collision mitigation. Technology prevents accidents! Period!

I agree with you 100%! Anyone that would argue against a technology that could potentially save lives is an idiot! I'm 48 and have been involved in three accidents in my life. First was when I was 17 and I rear ended a car by not paying attention. This technology would have helped reduce the impact or maybe mitigate the accident all together. If the technology save the life of one inexperienced driver or a mother distracted by small children in the back seat then it's worth it! The other two accident weren't my fault when inexperienced drivers made left turns at an intersection. Technology doesn't make you a less careful driver. That's a human factor. Your either willing to text while driving. Or like me you turn the phone completely off. I don't care who you are or how great of a driver you think you are. You've been distracted by something while seated behind the wheel of an automobile!

 

[leszek]

So let me guess, you are the type of person that thinks that seat belts and air bags are a bad thing as well? They obviously lead to dangerous driving, right? You have never been in a single accident in your life? People aren't perfect. Accidents happen. No one is saying that people "rely on collision mitigation" and just drive around with their eyes closed. You argument against collision mitigation technology sound exactly like those that oppose seat belts and air bags.

Technology and tools that saves lives in ACCIDENTS is a good thing! Period! Accidents happen and thousands of people are killed every year in accidents and NOT because some is "tailgating or worse". I am 45 and I have been in two accidents in my life and neither was my fault. Once I was rear ended, which could have been easily avoided if the other car had a collision mitigation system.
The other time I was t-boned going through an intersection when the other person ran the light. That also would have been avoided with collision mitigation. Technology prevents accidents! Period!

Have you actually read what I said or you just blindly quoted me? Why are you twisting my argument of me being against bad drivers who rely solely on technology to save themselves into me being against technology that can save lives???

 

[Mike A.]

Not a Mustang but cool to see where the technology is going.

[ame]

 

[papinist]

thanks for posting this! I saw it time ago but can't remember what car was

 

[wildsailor]

The collision mitigation might be the best part of the package - if you ever need it.

On my Mercedes GLK the ACC is a dream in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Slows to 0 when needed, tracks right behind the car in front of you, and "mitigates" that possibility of a rear-end collision at all times (depending on the car the cruise might have to be active). It should reduce your insurance but I have no knowledge on that.

For 1200, it's definitely worth it, for convenience and for safety, if you live in an urban area. If you live far from a big city then maybe you won't have as much use for it but I'd definitely recommend it if you can afford it for the safety aspect.

The Ford system is not capable of stop and go traffic yet but it is coming. I chose not to buy the package for the 2015 because I did not put that much value in this system yet, even with the collision mitigation warnings.

However, when the next gen comes out I will likely ante up and it will include stop and go, self steering, lane keeping, and self park as well. Now we are talking value.....

I can already maintain speed using the rear bumper of the car in front of me just fine so the package in the 2015 was not high on my list of desires. I just chose to wait for the next system before jumping on board.

Sponsored