My crapty Toyota Corolla rental has BlueCruise

[Mach1E]

No. And that’s why the weight helps. Because as a great many can attest, the biggest shortcoming of BC is nagging you to put hands back on the wheel when LC is working perfectly fine.

If LC actually fails, that’s why you’re watching the road. For the 63rd time, you have to watch the road regardless - the only question is whether you’re doing it with an overly sensitive torque sensor, an cheap ankle weight, or an $800 annual subscription.

And therein lies the problem with the weight.

When hands free BC tells you to put your hands on the wheel, it’s because…… you need to put your hands on the wheel and take control.

If you have the weight on, the car thinks your hands are on the wheel and wouldn’t tell you.

So what then? You wait until the car goes across the lane and lane departure takes over since your hands are off the wheel and you have the weight in place? No way that’s a safe way to drive. Lane centering (Bluecruise) and lane departure are two separate things. The latter NOT something to be hands free for.

On a related note, does the weight become a projectile if you do get into an accident and the airbag goes off? Just another safety concern to add to the list.

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[Gullwingdmc]

My 2021 Mach E is back in the shop, this time for the Front Camera Crapout repair (off topic, I'm surprised my warranty repairs alone are not a separate line item on Ford's latest financials), and the dealer generously arranged for a rental car. Enterprise gave me a crapty Toyota Corolla, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that it also has a "magic button" which provides Hands-On BlueCruise! Adaptive Cruise Control, Speed Limit Recognition, Lane Centering, it's all here. Hmmm...

But Toyota will charge you a monthly subscription to use the remote start function on your keyfob.

 

[macchiaz-o]

When hands free BC tells you to put your hands on the wheel, it’s because…… you need to put your hands on the wheel and take control.

Correct. It takes less time to correct an error when you're hands are on the wheel compared to hands doing whatever else they spend time doing in Mirak's car.

Besides the gaze monitor, the significant added convenience of hands free BlueCruise is that the vehicle identifies different levels of risk by cuing the driver when hands need to be positively in control of the wheel.

 

[mkhuffman]

I played around with using the weight in my non BC equiped car.

On the highway lane centering turns off at many entrance ramps if I am in the right lane. So it works best if you are not in the right lane. I move over to the right after passing, so cruising in the middle or left lanes is not something I do, and it annoys me when others do it. We should be on the left when we are passing, not cruising.

Around town the weight is a huge PIA. It gets in the way and "hards free" really isn't useful around town anyway.

I agree that it is less safe than hands on driving, and I also agree it can be perfectly safe if the driver is paying attention. Hands free BC is also less safe than if you have your hands on the wheel. Yet people trust it and take their hands off, knowing it is less safe.

Anyway, I don't defer to ignorant legislators who pass ignorant laws all the time regarding what is safe for me and my situation. So that isn't a compelling argument for why someone shouldn't do something, for me anyway.

I am not using Red Neck BC, but the reason isn't because a politician says it's unsafe. I happen to like holding on to the wheel, I am passing and changing lanes frequently, and that weight is a PIA.

 

[MME Farmer]

It's a type of object some drivers employ when they're confident in their predictions about what their vehicles are going to do next, and that they're smarter than the automotive engineers who designed the machine for an attentive and actively in-control driver.

The same engineers that gave us the horsepower and then used weak components so that we could only use that horsepower for 5 seconds. The "eye nanny" pretty much keeps you attentive and in control, if you want to do otherwise that's you own fault.

 

[Mirak]

The "eye nanny" pretty much keeps you attentive and in control, if you want to do otherwise that's you own responsibility.

Fixed.

 

[Mirak]

Around town the weight is a huge PIA. It gets in the way and "hards free" really isn't useful around town anyway.

I agree that it is less safe than hands on driving, and I also agree it can be perfectly safe if the driver is paying attention. Hands free BC is also less safe than if you have your hands on the wheel. Yet people trust it and take their hands off, knowing it is less safe.

Anyway, I don't defer to ignorant legislators who pass ignorant laws all the time regarding what is safe for me and my situation. So that isn't a compelling argument for why someone shouldn't do something, for me anyway.

I am not using Red Neck BC, but the reason isn't because a politician says it's unsafe. I happen to like holding on to the wheel, I am passing and changing lanes frequently, and that weight is a PIA.

Agree 100%. Also LOL “red neck BC.”

I only put the weight on occasionally during road trips. It is pointless and cumbersome on city streets.

 

[Hammered]

And therein lies the problem with the weight.

No, no problem with the weight in such a case. The torque sensor is a poorly executed approach to it. Nothing like having to input force to touch a line in a straightaway 5 or more times because of a poorly executed nanny.

When hands free BC tells you to put your hands on the wheel, it’s because…… you need to put your hands on the wheel and take control.

No. BC is what ford calls the system, not just in the gated "hands free" mode. I use the system ("blue cruise") greater than 95% of the time, of that time, less than 15% is the "hands free" mode. When not in hands free mode it requires continual torque, even when not needed, to the point it's just annoying.

Let's be crystal clear about ADAS L2 -- there's no version of use where you can mindlessly let the system do its thing while you knit or do whatever it is one likes to do under such circumstances. I've got both an active and assist, and since most of my driving isn't in the gated areas, I essentially have to assist 2.0 systems. I drive them both the same way most of the time, the knee is on the wheel when conditions warrant. Due to my frequent use and understanding of the system, I'm always prepared for it to try and take a poorly marked exit outside of gated areas. A hand is always on the wheel in high-speed heavier traffic, same for tight and/or poorly marked bridges.

That's really the goal of the system -- to do what it can where it can, with the driver understanding where those conditions are met. New users of the system should have zero confidence in it. It should earn every fractional percentage you trust it.

If you have the weight on, the car thinks your hands are on the wheel and wouldn’t tell you.

So what then? You wait until the car goes across the lane and lane departure takes over since your hands are off the wheel and you have the weight in place? No way that’s a safe way to drive. Lane centering (Bluecruise) and lane departure are two separate things. The latter NOT something to be hands free for.

On a related note, does the weight become a projectile if you do get into an accident and the airbag goes off? Just another safety concern to add to the list.

Well no, even when the system panics, it continues to drive. There's actually 3 modes. Hands free, hands on with lane centering, and radar cruise only. Even in hands on mode, it will panic and continue to drive while telling you to take over as it reverts to radar cruise mode w/ no LKA. As the system moves into and out of hands free in the gated zones, there's no issue. Same logic is still functioning. The weight won't become a projectile as 1 - it's going to keep going the direction it was heading before the collision, forward, 2 - placing it in the center doesn't yield anything. For the 'trick' to work, it must be far enough out on the wheel such that the force exerted is sufficient to be detected.

The biggest reason in the MME to disable BC and revert to assist 2.0 is to get rid of the eye nanny that's easily obstructed with driving position. The reason to get rid of it in the 12" F150 is that accessories can obstruct its LOS, as can having a coffee mug being held close to the face. I believe the 15" unit in the F150 to be of the least annoying as its sensors and blasters are wide and high. The MME's is the poorest implementation of eye tracker.

 

[woody]

What is all of this Toyota bashing? Is this a new company producing cars in Yugoslavia? If this is so, they probably will not sell any cars anyway. So why bother.

 

[woody]

When cruise control(called "Auto-Pilot" back then, circa 1958/9) was introduced (MoPar) it worked. [GM coined the "Cruise Control" name]
Modern cruise control (blue, green, red or any other) is good for one thing: keeping you from exceeding the speed limit, which is easy to do in the MME.

 

[Hammered]

When cruise control(called "Auto-Pilot" back then, circa 1958/9) was introduced (MoPar) it worked. [GM coined the "Cruise Control" name]
Modern cruise control (blue, green, red or any other) is good for one thing: keeping you from exceeding the speed limit, which is easy to do in the MME.

I use it often w/ speed sign recognition.

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