So, we got a car earlier this year – a Subaru. It’s a nice car, drives well, and has enough room for the wife and I, as well as the dogs.
Subarus are considered one of the safest cars on the road. They have engineered several safety features that are meant to help the driver avoid accidents.
It has adaptive cruise control, meaning you can set your speed and the car will maintain that speed without you putting your foot on the gas pedal. In addition, it maintains a set distance and speed from the car in front of you. Say you’re travelling at 55 miles per hour (88.5 kilometers per hour) ad another car is in font of you going the same speed. If that car slows down to 45 mph (72 kph) your car slows down to the same speed.
The car will automatically brake if you are approaching a car in front of you and you haven’t applied the brakes. This is to help minimize any damage from plowing into the car ahead of you. This isn’t a feature I really want to test out. If you are going at a high enough speed I don’t know that automatic braking will stop you in time, but I suppose it is better than nothing.
The car will alert you if you start drifting into another lane or off the edge of the road. This can be handy but can also be kind of annoying. I think there is a mode that will let the car correct itself and move back into your lane, but I don’t want to have to fight my car for control like that.
Finally, the car has a feature that will alert you if it thinks you need to take a break or if you aren’t paying attention. I’m not sure how exactly the car determines these things. The stay alert function I believe operates by watching the driver and looks at where their eyes are. If you aren’t looking ahead, say if you’re looking at the radio trying to find your favorite station, and you take too long, the dash will flash the message “STAY ALERT!” in big red letters and make a noise.
I can see where this could be a useful feature. Except for when it isn’t. We were driving home the other day, returning from one of the neighboring small towns, and in the space of 14 miles (22 kilometers) the system went off 20 times! I wasn’t fiddling with the radio, or reading billboards, just looking straight ahead.
We checked with the dealership. Their explanation is that the car is looking at the driver’s eyes and wearing things like sunglasses, or regular glasses, or a hat, can throw it off. I wear glasses and a hat most of the time and I really shouldn’t have to change that just to suit the car. Apparently the feature can be turned off. If it continues to be annoying I’ll take the car into the dealership and have them turn it off. I can see where the feature could be useful, if you’re driving while you’re sleepy or impaired, it could potentially save your life. But going off repeatedly because you’re wearing glasses seems like a design flaw to me. Hopefully Subaru fixes this soon and issues a recall so it a be fixed in all their vehicles.
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