Lane Departure/Lane Assist and towing

It would certainly be my plan if my vehicle had it.

Me too.

One of my vehicles, when a trailer is detected as being attached, disables the Cruise Control, changes the transmission change pattern and ..... can't remember the 3rd. It would be a safe feature if this too was turned off when a trailer is attached in case you pull up for a pit stop and forget to turn it off when you resume.

Cause my car doesnt have it - hence the Q Kazza055

Neither does my Mazda cx30!

A paltry couple of pages, otherwise look it up online.

Then spend the next few hours trolling thru' the Index, reading lots of nonsense that doesn't actually address the issue you are having a problem with.
Or spending hours sitting in the drivers seat, trying to follow the instructions while balancing your laptop on the steering wheel.

What fun!!

bill

If everyone read their user manual and did their own research, this forum would not exist.

Once upon a time there was a myth that using cruise control uses more fuel I never tried it or really believed it but saving 2 lts / hundred. Surely it would be because your only doing 90kph instead of 100kph and very little to do with the cruise control.

I have a ranger the fuel use prominantly displayed on the dash . Tonking around town using my foot fuel goes up abt 1 or so l/100 careful driving. Where as the cruise can push it back down.
The v6 runs cruise abt 10.9 to 10. 4 atm footing it gives abt 11. 4 ish ..... boot in abt 15 going past rual trucks. My camper is abt 1.2 tonnes consumption runs 11.0 to 12 going north out of perth flat country. Bridgetown hills abt 13ish. I dont have sport mode and i could happily live without bells an whistles it has.

You’re talking lane departure.
This is about lane assist…..or some cars call it lane centering……2 different things.

Thanks for the clarification Gronk, I didn't know the terminology, though i knew the newer European cars had sometimes bordering on self steering.

An acquaintance of mine explained the difference between his German BMW lane entering (little tolerance for being slack) and his English vehicle (Range Rover) which more politely asked you to do the right thing.
Toyota are always the last to adopt new technology!

The lane keeping assits on my corolla cross hybrid is quite aggressive it will forceably steer the car into the centre of the lane which I don't mind as it is basically self driving with the adapitve speed control on. The annoying aspect is it it will keep warning you to put your hands on the steering wheel even when your hands are on the steering wheel if you don't keep making corrections which you don't need to do on a straight road.

The lane trace is very good and it will even lock onto the edge of the road when there is no white line, another annoying aspect though is if cross the white line on the left it will forceable try and centre between the white line and wherever the side of the road is and can be a tad alarming if your not expecting it.

Other good points are the cruise control will actively accelerate up to the speed limit when you indicate to move into the right hand land if it is clear and will decelerate into a slot in the left hand left if going that way.

I find the Toyota cruise control to be much more friendly than the Mazda system for example, if someone moves across in front of you it will not brake like the Mazda system does everytime. With the Toyota system if someone pulls across in front of you as long as there pulling away it does nothing whereas the Mazda system jumps on the brakes. The Toyota system also simply reduces the throttle when it dectects its approaching a car in front and slows down to match the speed then either gradually drops back or accellerates if the car in front move away. The Mazda system again jumps on the brakes which must be annoying to anyone following and they are probably wonder why your car why you brake everytime a car pulls across in front.

I have a 21 Prado and I find the lane departure feature, or whatever it's call, really annoying and I rarely turn it on. I would never turn it on when towing. It's too agressive. I've never found a version that I would use, except perhaps not towing in heavy traffic on a multi-lane road in unfamiliar territory, when there's a risk of distraction as I navigate the traffic and try to watch road signs. I find them all too aggressive.

The 150 Prado does not have lane centering technology, as it doesn't have electonic steering, or perhaps electronically assisted, I thought I read that the 250 does have it. My last vehicle was European and I thought it was was mostly wonderful. It made steering in a straight line effortless, and I missed in when I first got the Prado. But it did make the steering very light in corners, and it took a bit of practice not to oversteer.

LOL and a damn lot easier to work on when it has a problem.

Yes. The last courtesy car I drove when my Lexus was serviced was able to steer itself back to centre of the lane and after I disabled it, turned back on the next time I started the car.

Its another sign those making decisions about the ADR's are not thinking these things thru as thoroughly was we would like..

My next gen Everest mentions it in the manual, and Ford had a service bulletin saying NOT to use it while towing.
Pity that Ford software engineers couldn’t do it….seeing as they can enable other functions when only towing.

That is not a fault of the technology, the driver still needs to pay attention to his driving.

My new car has both lane keep and adaptive cruise control and I love both.

The lane keep function is cancelled once I operate the indicators which is how you should be drive, not changing lanes without indicating.

The adaptive cruise control is great in freeway traffic, I can drive without the need to be constantly braking and accelerating leaving me to concentrate on what is happening around me.

totally agree.
But I hate the collision avoidance which can jam on the brakes when the car in front turns off and slows on a slip road along with red lights across the dash..
Radar cruise can also play up on a gentle curve up a hill with semis in the left lane and me in the centre lane when it sees the semi doing say 40Kmh. You just have to be alert.

Yep, as rangiephil says,
You have to be alert!!
Not have the vehicle doing things for you , and poorly in a lot of cases!

Shane, you contradict yourself, if you are alert, you can still have the car do things for you.

These cars are not autonomous, so you still need to fully pay attention.

Problem with the 'car doing things for you' means you abdicating responsibility for the first reaction to the vehicle, once it's decided what to do and implemented it you get to try and recover.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that there have been a lot of accidents that could have been avoided if someone/thing took action before it happened, vehicle manufacturers have decided for you that their programmers are smarter and have a greater ability to expedite the corrective actions before you could. Do they, obviously they do, sometimes, and sometimes they don't.
I've seen demonstrations by qualified racing drivers of the impact of ABS, skid correction and various other technology compared to what they can, and do, as a professional driver. But what they did demonstrate is you need to be taught how to use the technology or it can cause more problems than it's supposed to solve.
Without technology you had to try a bit to get yourself into deep trouble, with the technology you can get a lot further into trouble before you know it and at that point the chances of recovery are fairly slim. After all 4wd lets you get a lot further in before you get stuck than a 2wd.
Perhaps the classic example was in an ad sometime in the fairly recent past showing a pedestrian wearing head phones strutting down a footpath and then stepping out into the road, without looking, into the path a 'high tech' vehicle which immediately braked and avoided hitting the pedestrian. The vehicle was shown just prior to the incident with the driver singing happily to their favorite music hit on the fancy hifi, oblivious to their surroundings.
I have a terrible habit of getting the wrong message from most advertising but the ones I got from this advert was, 'buy our fancy high tech car, don't worry about anything apart from your play list, the smarts in the car will save you and others from self responsibility'. I've I feeling I got the wrong message from the one intended.
Now if someone could invent a 'Darwin Award autonomous vehicle' that never leaves the driveway, I reckon it could have a huge market.

Kazza,
I think I’ll agreed to disagree with you.
But because of the automation, quite a few drivers are not going to be full attention . That’s a fact of life!

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I can't be sure whether to consider the collision avoidance in my Sprinter to be good or bad.
I was travelling on a 2+2 lane suburban arterial road during the morning bumper-to-bumper traffic when an idiot shot out of a laneway fast and halted at the kerb line. I did see him with his nose down braking but so also did my collision avoidance system which slapped the brakes on so fast and hard that it made a loud bang. The brakes were as quickly released but we had dropped to a much lower speed. I was amazed that the vehicles behind me did not plough progressively into the rear of my vehicle.
But then I wonder…. what if that offensive car had continued out into my path?
As I said, I can't be sure if it's a good or bad feature. What's best, a rear or frontal collision?
Anyway, I still have it turned on but my lane departure alarm definitely remains silenced.

Had an eye opening moment when I thought I was following a car turning on an orange light. I had glanced at other cars and when I looked forward again the car I was following had decided to suddenly stop anyway.
I hit the Subaru's brakes as hard as I could and waited for the crunch. Unbelievably , the car just came to a full stop , inches from the car in front . I couldn't believe it. Heart still pounds at the thought to this day.
That ABS system is unbelievable.
Cheers
Jim

mblkitmgr, I too have done some defensive driving courses and is amazing to see people ease off or stop braking when the ABS kicks in. I think the car manufacturers need to teach people that buy their cars how ABS works

Agree totally with practice braking.
With or without ABS , practice is a must . I bring this up with drivers and riders regularly.
To me it’s possibly the biggest life saving technique you can learn.
A question I have asked people is “what is the first thing you should do if a car is coming at you on the wrong side of the road?l
Because to wash off as much speed as possible is the best first response, if you still connect with the oncoming it will be a lot less damaging, and also you are going much slower to go left onto the shoulder or further off the road to avoid.
I regularly practice brake in/on my vehicles especially the motorcycles.

shane r1, when I was a young bloke driving on narrow NQ roads I did a lot of miles travelling between uni and home. I had to apply the anchors and get off the road on three or four occasions when a driver decided that they were on a three lane road and overtook an oncoming vehicle. Try a panic stop in a 1965 shovel nose Toyota Corona for an exciting experience in unwanted excursions from your line, tough as nails they were, but the brakes! In less regulated days there were also some interesting encounters with heavy transports. Having had that experience I always do a quick assessment of oncoming traffic for any erratic behaviour and make sure I'm aware of road side conditions in case I need to go bush. You've got to love the Stuart Highway, a couple of years ago, in a day's driving south of Alice, twice I had to move over onto the thankfully wide verge to get out of the way of vehicles who misjudged or didn't see me coming when overtaking.

ABS does not make you stop more quickly than locked brakes. What it does is allow you to steer while braking hard and not go straight ahead into say the car in front.
It is of dubious use on a crowded multi lane freeway as if there is a sudden stop in one lane then the other lanes are probably chockers and no shoulder.
I can recall many years ago that there were several studies done by the US NHTSA ( or whatever ) and no accident benefit was found.( even though they mandated it under pressure from insurance companies. I don't think that premiums went down.
However what ABS does do well is it enabled the development of Stability Control ,Traction Control and Downhill Assist so on balance worthwhile.
I practice with mine on wet roads .

From memory there is about a 30% to 40% loss of grip if a tyre is spinning compared to a tyre
that is locked up. A car fitted with a modern ABS system that can pulse quickly will stop faster.

You have indicate this when you wrote " allow you to steer while braking hard" you can steer because
the wheels have more grip spinning than they do when they are locked up.

You see this in race cars, as soon as the wheels lock or start spining the wheels loose grip and the vehcile either goes straight ahead front wheels locked or spins out back wheels locked.

There are a few charts around on the net you should be able to find that show tyre grip spinning compared to locked up.

Think of a drag car doing a burn out, they throw some water in front of the rear wheels and floor it, once the rear wheels start spinning they can easily hold the car using the bracking of the front wheels.
moving forward hold the car Another example drift cars, they start the back wheels spinning and watch a stream trians wheels, when they loose traction they just start spinning and the train goes now where, so they reduce the power to the wheels grip

I always thought that ABS was designed to prevent the wheels from locking up, once they lock and you start skidding you reduce your braking efficiency. If you slam your foot on the brake pedal and the ABS cuts it, you will feel the brakes pumping.

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As Phil said, ABS allows steering to continue. A wheel that is not turning allows no steering. A locked wheel is no longer a wheel, it is simply a shoe sliding along the ground. Only when it rotates can it influence the directional movement of the car.

It is for this very same reason that you must not allow the wheels to lock up when coming down a steep slippery slope. They must continue to turn in order to maintain directional control.

Yes Allan, I remember driving on ice at Thedbro, scary stuff.

Allan absolutely, the downhill. I did a big trip of Victorian high country on a 250 kg BMW 1200 gsa. The steep downhills (and loose rocky) demand a very good feel on both front and rear brakes to control, and yes if you lock at all , on your side you go. I’d be surprised if the latest ABS systems can do that as good as a good rider.
That bike doesn’t have abs . But I’ve got a couple that do . My preference is non ABS , but I do practice hard braking regularly

Here is an intersting video regarding stopping distance and steering

ABS versus non ABS

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Yes, Leigh's video is certainly interesting and demonstrates the shortened stopping distance when using ABS braking.
For a scientific presentation of tyre coefficients of tyre friction this site is comprehensive, and there are many other offerings on the subject.

It all comes down to the relative values of 'Adhesive Friction' and 'Sliding Friction'. The former being the value before breakaway of the tyre/road and the latter being after breakaway. The coefficient is always of a greater value before breakaway so preventing this event is important in lowering stopping distance.

What does not seem to be acknowledged in these various "scientific" revelations is the part that smoke plays in a skidding tyre. Leigh's video is a clear revelation of the amount of smoke being generated by a skidding tyre. This smoke is an outcome of the tyre composition being heated to melting point and generating gasses between the tyre and road. These gasses act in the same way as an oily lubricant applied between two sliding components that significantly reduces the sliding friction. I would suggest that one of the desirable outcomes of ABS braking is that the progressive rotation of the wheel presents a fresh cooler tyre surface to the road which in turn avoids moving from adhesive to sliding friction.

Yes I agree Allan,

I also believe the video shows quite clearly how the ABS systems have advanced over the years.

With the old systems you could see the wheels stop spinning then start spinning again etc which was not the most efficent. With the new systems the operate so quickly the tyres are kept right on the edge of loosing traction.

I read one of the other big issues is drivers tend to lift their foot off the brake pedal when they hear the skidding starting and or feel the brakes start pulsing due to the ABS function. Another issue is simply drivers not pushing the brake pedal hard enough under emergency stopping events. My Prado has what Toyota call emergency driver braking assist and I expect all models with the enchanced safety suite of features have it. Basically it monitors how hard and fast the brake pedal is being pressed and if the system determins a crash scenario is likely it takes over control of the braking system and applies maximum breaking force and maintains it till the vehicle stops or the driver takes their foot off the brake pedal. Personnaly I have I found the couple of times it has operated to be annoying as I have hit the brakes when I thought the situation was becoming not good but then when I realised all was going to be ok and reduced the breaking effort the system has taken over and slammed the brakes on again. Same with our new Corolla Cross, it can be annoying when entering the garage and it decides its getting to close to the garage door opening or the caravan parked in the garage and slams on its brakes. On the other hand when they save you from a crash your not going to complain.

Same for all the beeps and other warnings how we all complain about them and turn them off yet I have also spoken to many that indicate how these new system have saved them from being invloved in an collision. Systems like cross traffic alert and blindspot dection are magic. One other system I have found to be great is Toyotas AI voice commands. Toyota took the stance many moons ago to keep buttons in the cars and avoid the use of touch screens where possible so that you don't need to navigate through menus, you csm pretty much jump in any Toyota model the the basic controlls are in the same loctation etc.

However the voice commands in my new Corolla Cross are magic, no need to navigate screens or look for unfamilar buttons etc, just ask the car to do whatever and it does it.

Reading further comments on ABS
Just reinforces my belief in practice , it doesn’t matter wether you’re operating a non ABS or various sorts of variations of the technology.
You should practice emergency braking! You need to be familiar with each vehicle you operate.
My motorcyclist brain probably works a lot different to a lot of road users. It has too!

Another ABS video
https://youtu.be/sDbWZiaUeDY?si=pEEhltzKTq8FeKRH
Leigh’s video shows ABS versus locking up . Which is a bit different than ABS versus braking manually with the correct technique.

As was pointed out in the video I posted, if your used to threshold braking and know the road surface then you can break as well or better than some ABS system after all that's what the ABS is trying to do give you the ability of a race driver.

The fact is most don't have these abilities and quite a few think they do and don't. I have seen plenty of race drivers caught out also seen plenty of bike riders who thought they were better than they are come to grief on slippery corners. Remember one instance on the great ocean road helping a bike rider who came to grief on a corner. Sunny day dry road except for the patch he hit hard under brakes that was shaded by a large gum tree and damp.

Yes Leigh
Threshold braking was discussed, but the video demonstrated was lock up braking which is entirely different