Turning off Speed Sign Recognition while using Blue Cruise

[Trax]

So now, when you enter a 70mph zone, your car is going to accelerate to 90mph.

Perfect. I live in Miami. Nuff said lol. Also, max speed on BC is 80 so wrong again haha!

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[RickMachE]

Perfect. I live in Miami. Nuff said lol. Also, max speed on BC is 80 so wrong again haha!

Well, it would help if you understood the features of the vehicle. Max speed with handsfree IS 80mph. Max speed with cruise with hands on, is not.

I constantly tell people they should read their manual, and people laugh. "Nuff said lol".

 

[dearbornjim]

Just got my car and trying to read up on how it works. I know exactly what you are talking about. If a car suddenly slows down because it sees a speed limit sign that everyone else is ignoring and cars are following it closely that is a rear-ender waiting to happen.

 

[ChrisO]

Personally, I came to the conclusion that what I want is to turn off the speed sign option (It was a pain where the speed limit dropped, but no one was changing speed, I rather control this myself), and to put the positive and negative tolerances to zero.

That way the car adheres to exactly what I have set for the speed of the cruse control unless I override it (which I do based on the traffic or road conditions).

And I will note that setting a +20 tolerance isn't going to speed up to 90mph if the cruse control speed is set to 70mph and you are on a flat road. No more than setting a -20mph is going to make the car go 50mph when the cruse control is set at 70mph and you are on a flat road.

These tolerances are for hills. Given the cruse control is at 70mph, and you are going down a hill with a +20mph tolerance it will allow your car to speed up to 90mph before it gets off of the accelerator/applies the break. This just like a person that keep the accelerator at the same position while going down hill. (and the keyword is "allow", it basically maintains the accelerator at the same position until it gets to 90, but depending on the hill that may or may not ever happen)

And the same goes for going up a hill. Take a person not using cruse control, if you don't press down on the accelerator more your car is going to slow down, with a -20mph tolerance the cruse control will let the car go down to 50mph before it applies more acceleration.

Getting these tolerances wrong can really scare you and maybe be dangerous if you don't understand when they are going to kick in.

 

[dearbornjim]

DId you figure out how those offsets work through trial and error, or is that explained in the owners manual?

 

[ChrisO]

DId you figure out how those offsets work through trial and error, or is that explained in the owners manual?

By trial and error, or more accurately, by trial and fear!

I made the mistake of doing exactly what was stated in this thread, setting the plus tolerance to +20mph and then my wife was driving and went down a hill and it "took off". She applied the break and that is when I dogged into exactly what that setting does.

As for the speed limit sign that wasn't frightening just annoying. I encountered it a few times before I realized what it was. I never experienced it as "breaking". It would be cruising at 70mph and then it was when it saw a slower speed it was like taking your foot off of the accelerator and coasting to the slower speed.

I didn't look in the user manual for this, until just now, and didn't see anything that really explained it.

What I did do is press the I icon near the "Predictive Speed" setting in the car and read that, but it isn't really that clear, it just says that you can set the tolerance lower and higher.

 

[ChrisO]

BTW the more I think about it, my "sequence of mistakes" was exactly what was described in this thread.

I was annoyed by the speed limit setting dropping the speed, and thought that the way it worked is that I could keep the speed limit setting on but tell it to basically "allow me to speed up to XX mph faster" , by setting the tolerance to +20mph. So, that is what I did, and that is when we got the surprise when my wife was driving down a hill.

I can certainly say that is part of the settings/documentation is quite confusing.

And I can also, say that I'm quite happy with the speed limit sign setting off and the speed prediction off (set to zero). But note about the speed limit sign, and curves I also don't use adaptive cruise control on windy roads, where this might be "good thing", but I have my doubts about that too.

 

[dearbornjim]

Thanks. I appreciate the input so I don't have the same issue. It alll sounds overly complicated. I've had adaptive speed control since my 2012 car (not Ford). On all of my cars I simply hit the "set" button when I reached the desired speed. If for any reason I needed to speed up or slow down I used the steering wheel button. One hit up for +1 mph, one long hit for up +5 mph, and of course down for -1 or -5. Even if the speed limit goes from 65 to 55 it would take just a couple seconds to hit the down 5 button a couple of times. After 4 cars (none Fords) that all had adaptive speed control it became second nature. Like you I use adaptive speed control a lot, but not on windy roads. So I don't need compensation to slow down on turns. Given how different the radius of turns can be I'm not even sure how a fixed offset could work. Speed sign recgnition just told me what the speed limit was and I used my judgement to decide what speed I wanted to go. Sounds like I can do all of this on my new Mach-e. Of course I've got my trial of Blue Cruise 1.5 to try out and will have to see how it handles speed limit changes.

 

[ChrisO]

Thanks. I appreciate the input so I don't have the same issue. It alll sounds overly complicated. I've had adaptive speed control since my 2012 car (not Ford). On all of my cars I simply hit the "set" button when I reached the desired speed. If for any reason I needed to speed up or slow down I used the steering wheel button. One hit up for +1 mph, one long hit for up +5 mph, and of course down for -1 or -5. Even if the speed limit goes from 65 to 55 it would take just a couple seconds to hit the down 5 button a couple of times. After 4 cars (none Fords) that all had adaptive speed control it became second nature. Like you I use adaptive speed control a lot, but not on windy roads. So I don't need compensation to slow down on turns. Given how different the radius of turns can be I'm not even sure how a fixed offset could work. Speed sign recgnition just told me what the speed limit was and I used my judgement to decide what speed I wanted to go. Sounds like I can do all of this on my new Mach-e. Of course I've got my trial of Blue Cruise 1.5 to try out and will have to see how it handles speed limit changes.

Let me add a few things that I glossed over that people have said on here a lot, but you being a new user might not have seen yet.

Blue Cruise isn't drastically different than Adaptive Cruise control with lane keeping on. The main differences are when Blue Cruise determines it is safe you can take your hands off of the wheel, and you can use the turn signal to change lanes (it is still used to tell lane keeping you are going to change lanes so it doesn't fight you), and starting with Blue Cruise 1.5 it can also pass a slower car automatically.

I let my Blue Cruise 1.4 (which has all the same except for the automatic passing) expire and we are only using Adaptive Cruise control with lane keeping since we are perfectly happy to leave our hands on the wheel. In fact, for my wife she never got comfortable with her hands off of the wheel. For me it is "I can take it or leave it".

 

[AZBill]

Personally, I came to the conclusion that what I want is to turn off the speed sign option (It was a pain where the speed limit dropped, but no one was changing speed, I rather control this myself), and to put the positive and negative tolerances to zero.

That way the car adheres to exactly what I have set for the speed of the cruse control unless I override it (which I do based on the traffic or road conditions).

And I will note that setting a +20 tolerance isn't going to speed up to 90mph if the cruse control speed is set to 70mph and you are on a flat road. No more than setting a -20mph is going to make the car go 50mph when the cruse control is set at 70mph and you are on a flat road.

These tolerances are for hills. Given the cruse control is at 70mph, and you are going down a hill with a +20mph tolerance it will allow your car to speed up to 90mph before it gets off of the accelerator/applies the break. This just like a person that keep the accelerator at the same position while going down hill. (and the keyword is "allow", it basically maintains the accelerator at the same position until it gets to 90, but depending on the hill that may or may not ever happen)

And the same goes for going up a hill. Take a person not using cruse control, if you don't press down on the accelerator more your car is going to slow down, with a -20mph tolerance the cruse control will let the car go down to 50mph before it applies more acceleration.

Getting these tolerances wrong can really scare you and maybe be dangerous if you don't understand when they are going to kick in.

With the latest software there is no "speed sign recognition" setting. There is only the "predictive speed setting" which does follow the speed limit signs. It also seems to slow the car in curves. When that is turned off, there is no longer any "tolerance" setting. I have never had my Mach E speed up or slow down by the tolerance on hills, and I travel in mountains in AZ.

 

[ChrisO]

With the latest software there is no "speed sign recognition" setting. There is only the "predictive speed setting" which does follow the speed limit signs. It also seems to slow the car in curves. When that is turned off, there is no longer any "tolerance" setting. I have never had my Mach E speed up or slow down by the tolerance on hills, and I travel in mountains in AZ.

Good to know. My experiences is based on my 2024 Mach-E.

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