Some of the safety tech has tried to kill me twice, due to glitching itself, so I have had to turn it off. π€·ββοΈ
this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2026
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My only experience with a car that had lane-keeping assist was that the car actively tried to kill me by steering me into oncoming traffic.
That car also thought I was sleeping when I wore sunglasses and again tried to kill me by scaring me with the loudest beep to 'wake me up' again.
If that is how well this tech works it is not adding any safety. Quite the opposite actually.
I also really started to wonder how bad the government ageny that tests these cars operates to certify this safety risk on wheels.
I've disabled safety tech in cars I drive because the signal to noise ratio was bad.
You're going over the speed limit, says the shitty sign recognition that missed the one outside that says otherwise.
You're tired, says the racist eye closure camera that can't deal with Asian eyes.
Your seatbelt is undone, says the sensor that can't discern between your backpack and a person. (To be fair, this one is just for the power of threes. Buckle in heavy objects. Secure your load.)
My 2015 would have the 'collision alert' because a car was in an adjacent turn lane, but the road curved and it didn't know that.
It also would go off most days on a stretch of road because it was certain I was going to slam into the guardrail of the curve. Again, the system had no cameras, no map awareness, so it just had radar saying 'something metal ahead'.
It was slightly annoying but left it on, just in case.
Now my 2023 on the other hand hasn't had a false positive that I can recall, in fact if not for one incident, I wouldn't even know it was doing anything. Someone pulled right out in front of my kid learning to drive. I had just enough time to think "oh, we are going to hit or my kid is going to yank this thing off the road". Instead, my kid executed a shockingly perfect evasive swerve that landed perfectly into the free lane. Then I find out that it also would take over steering and as a result, I'm pretty certain it saved me a pretty significant wreck.
Then I find out that it also would take over steering
Um. This is kind of terrifying.
Two hours ago, I was driving in my little town. Speed limit is about 35. At the edge of town is one of those giant freeway-style lighted signboards that flashes some info about upcoming construction starting soon. When you see them on the freeway, they don't look as big. When you're up close to one, you realize they're pretty freaking big.
Anyway, the signboard is now on it's back, all fucked up, twisted and broken. Looks like a dinosaur picked it up, bit it and threw it. A little farther up the road is a late model kia sedan with the front torn off and some fucking twat of a driver taking pictures of his car.
So I don't know what model he was in, but it was one of the larger sedans, so not an Elantra or something cheap. I know darn well that it at least had to have automatic emergency braking, maybe even some other driver aids. Somehow, this muppet was able to NOT see the giant lit up, bright orange signboard and his car did nothing to stop anything by the looks of it.
So it doesn't surprise me that people turn this shit off, not one tiny bit. It's always the people who need to have them on the most, as usual.
25.9 percent of owners whose cars have adaptive cruise control never switch it on
I know someone with adaptive cruise control who technically turns it on, but only when there's no car in front of them...
Nearly 18 percent steer clear of lane-keeping assist
I suspect these are also people who don't like to use turn signals. They don't like the car fighting their ill-advised lane change.
21.3 percent disable automatic emergency braking
I've never experienced actual automatic braking, though I did have a car that had a fairly high false positive rate on the collision alert that could have inspired someone to turn it off, and could easily imagine it if the car actually did brake. There's also people that are afraid it might have a false positive and turn it off pre-emptively.
Voice assistants go unused by 17.8 percent.
I'm shocked that number is so low. I have so little interest in what my car's voice assistant can do for me. In a family car I gave it a spin because it purported to be "fancier" but I didn't like it and it was also pretty useless. I don't see this as a big "meant to save their lives" thing, it's just a gimmick.
Augmented reality head-up displays fare no better: 17.1 percent of drivers who have one refuse to turn it on
I know someone in this boat, they don't like their view being obstructed, and the car model they wanted had this as base equipment. I would also say this is more gimmick than life saving. A glance to a speedometer or nav screen isn't going to be a super risk thing so long as those displays are appropriately located, they don't need to be right on the windshield.
massaging seats, just 22 percent say they use them regularly
Ok, really off the topic of the headline now. I have sat in a "massaging seat" in a car and am not surprised. It vaguely vibrates a bit, hardly worth anything.
only 22.4 percent use AR head-up displays when fitted
But they said AR HUD was rejected only by 17.1 percent of drivers? Guess the question would be what the definition of 'used' is if they have it on but somehow don't "use" it?
24.5 percent use remote start functions
In many cases, this is of pretty limited utility. If it's a keyfob-only capability, you have to be close enough to the car that, by that point, well you might as well get in and start it instead of digging out your keyfob. If it's got a gas engine, then it's not something you probably want to do out of sight. I will say for an electric car with internet controllable remote 'start', it's nice to get it going while you are getting ready to leave at the end of a workday or when you are paying the check at a restaurant.
45.7 percent of respondents say they regularly use reversing cameras
I actually saw someone this week who spent years ignoring his backup camera finally decide that his back up camera was handy. He's also the worst at parking I know, so here's hoping he starts backing up with his camera and gets better...
41 percent use heated windshields.
So what do the rest do when their window fogs up otherwise? This seems... hard to believe.
Nearly 18 percent steer clear of lane-keeping assist
I suspect these are also people who don't like to use turn signals. They don't like the car fighting their ill-advised lane change.
I'm one, but not because of "ill-adviced lane changes". In my case it's because I prefer to drive in the middle or little to the right of the lane. Note, I almost only drive on roads with a single lane in each direction.
I've had lane keep assist attempt to assassinate me, by jerking left in the lane, right as I was approaching a truck with a super wide load, with ΞV around 140km/h. After that I don't care how "safe" it makes me, I prefer to stay alive.
This title is so misleading as to be incorrect
My "parking assist" feature got immediately turned off when it slammed on the brakes because I backed into a parking spot and it saw the concrete parking block 6ft behind me...
I got out of the car thinking an animal had ran under a tire where I couldn't see it, then figured out it was just the car being "helpful".
AND that's the problem with "safety" tech. It doesn't act as an assistant it acts as a nanny. A nanny that makes mistakes. Sometimes harmless, sometimes irritating, and sometimes dangerous. Each driver should be allowed to decide what level of assistance they need/want without being forced or shamed about it. If we can't trust drivers to drive then maybe we shouldn't have cars and should redirect resources to public transportation infrastructure instead. (Personally I'm very on board with the latter.)
How about cleaning the snow off your car properly? I've seen plenty of drivers, in the USA, with covered headlights, rear lights, windows and half of the front windshield. If these lazy asshats do not know how to use an ice scrapper, pull them over and take their FOB/keys away.
Maybe if half of it didn't spy on you ...
Lane keep assist has been around since about the 00s I believe and adaptive cruise and emergency braking since the 90s. That's not the tech that's spying on you lol
When it was created, this was true. However, now cars have systems that log just about everything you do and send it to the manufacturer, who then sells it on to insurance, ICE, anyone with money.
So it started off ok, but now I would imagine that if your car has a sensor, it is reporting data back to that central telemetry unit which is sending it up up and away.
Then they'll just report to the insurance that you turned it off and also report all the sensor data anyway.
And you can just rip out the antennas for the telemetry and that won't magically make your safety systems stop working.
You can switch off the safety systems if you want to, but don't pretend you're doing it for privacy reasons.
"Safety tech". OK. I was visiting a mate in the states, and the rental gave me a Nissan. Apparently, there's a lot of construction going on in that state, and the Nissan tried to literally run me, at 100kmh, into a median, because it recognized the (clearly) scratched off lane markers and not the (clearly) newly painted lane markers. I had to use nearly all my upper body strength (whatever little of it I had left after a 13hr trip), to force the wheel to the left and away from death. And that fucker bitched at me the entire time! would have 100% died. All because of their fucking "safety" tech. I turned that shit off as soon as I parked. All of it. I'm still so angry at them for that shit.
I hate lane assist, its so irritating. Worst thing is: in my skoda you cant turn it off for good, every time you shut of the engine it resets to default, which means lane assist on.
After my skirt with death because of this thing, it's a 'no sale' feature.
Headline should read "One in five drivers switch off 'safety' tech meant to appease lawyers in a lawsuit-happy culture"
This makes me sound like I'm irresponsible. I'm not, I just happen to have a car with dangerously poorly designed "safety tech".
My car has sign recognition, cruise control, and lane keep assist. I use a single one, and one I can't turn off permanently.
Lane keep assist insists on making me drive way too far left, so I turned it off after it tried to kill me by forcing me into a super wide load truck coming towards me.
Cruise control keeps wanting to switch setting to the recognised speed limit. But it picks up all sorts of stuff. So driving by a highway on ramp will make it suggest that I put the speed limiter to 130km/h, on a 70km/h road. But turning off sign recognition requires me to go through several menus and is reset when I park.
On top of that the speed indicator is 4-5km/h too slow, so I'll be going 84km/h according to the indicator, my GPS says I'm going 80km/h, and I'll go by a sign and the speed limiter will pop up suggesting that I set it to 80. And btw the indicator displaying a faster speed than I'm going has nothing to do with wheel circumference. The car's odometer is spot on. If google maps says a trip is 300km then the odometer advances 300km, not 298 or 302.
It's mind boggling how poorly designed most of these systems are. These are multi-billion dollar corporations and they can't do a simple thing correctly for the most part when it comes to these systems.
For example, I don't know why this isn't the top and foremost thing but a car should NEVER be able to override when the human driver is trying to do. Sure, beep and adjust if veering out of the lane but as soon as any resistance it met by the wheel it should immediately turn off and let the driver do what they want to do.
I adore cruise control. I would literally sell that car if I had it. (or get a scan tool that can make that change permanant). What car is that?
Oh fuck yeah, I'll be driving the posted 130km/h and it suddenly catches a fucking 40km/h speed limit sign from a roundabout from fuck-knows-where and tries to e-stop in the middle of the highway. God damnit Nissan. Audi on the other hand works more or less flawlessly. From the lane control to the matrix headlights, I really like the systems on Audi.
My car is from the same group as nissan. Luckily it doesn't get to set the speed limiter automatically. If that was the case I'd traded it long ago.
Infiniti? I hate that fuckin' auto reset speed warning every single time I turn the car on. I'm so glad my personal vehicle doesn't have that.
Nissan is a decaying company and has been for decades now. They stopped making cars people wanted in the mid 00s and don't make reliable cars like the other Japanese makes mostly do.
Meanwhile the Quashqai here in Denmark is roughly $54k USD.
Yeah... If the Qashqai was under 20k β¬, it would perhaps be acceptable. But essentially, base model, you're paying 30kβ¬ for a shitty FWD hatchback that has comparable fuel economy to my more spacious and heavy 20 year old wagon. Which has about twice the power. And all-wheel drive. And will last much longer, if maintained*.
The last noteworthy Nissans IMO were the GT-R and the Leaf. The GT-R ended its 18 year production run (yes, 18 years of a single model) last year and the Leaf has been outclassed by other cheap EVs for years now.
I also drove the Armada when I was in the US a few years ago. That's supposed to be their flagship, the big bad SUV. Sure it had a V8 with a nice sound, but at like 50k miles or 80k ish kilometers, it was already falling apart...
Things were made worse when they decided to partner up with Mitsubishi and acquired a large stake in that company. Another dying company that hasn't made anything noteworthy in decades and closed down production of their iconic models. Neither company has innovated in any meaningful way lately. No real advancement in engines, transmissions, etc...
*Knew someone with the previous gen Qashqai. Less than 10 years and 200k km and the engine was considered toast.
Yeah, it's not a great vehicle. I'm fundamentally very unimpressed with it. Tbh I liked the Renault Captur more than this vehicle. I've driven a lot of different models of rentals in the past year, and I'd rank the Qashqai slightly above any of the Mercedes and below the VW family van. Audi at the top of the list, followed by the BMW X1, followed by the Captur.
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because they are awful!
I got a car 2 months ago and iβm incredible frustrated by the automatic cruise control. it has two modes βICCβ and βACCβ. I have no idea about the difference but the thing keeps switching between them and alerting me with a red alert every time!
I stopped using it after two weeks
Did your car come with a manual you can read? I'd give it a once over if I were you, sometimes you'll find unexpected things about your car.
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- adaptive cruise control
- AR HUD
- driving mode
None of these were meant to save lives
Also, both lane assist and auto emergency brakes are mostly poorly implemented. Even the ones that aren't really bad don't fare well with the chaos of the roads.
Also, voice assistant is bullshit. You know what would be better? That's right, physical buttons.
I was driving a newer Skoda on vacation last winter and the windshield started fogging up as I was passing through a narrow little village in blowing rain bordering on snow. In my car at home (and probably most of the cars ever made) there are three knobs to control the heat which can be operated by purely tactile means. In this particular car, I had to go through pages of menus with no tactile feedback on the touchscreen while driving. I was only seconds away from having to stick my head out the window and limp it to the next safe stopping spot. I am glad it didn't happen on the motorway at 140km/h. Who thought this was smart? The only modern car I drove that didn't suck was a Mazda with their multi-axis joystick and physical climate controls. The touch screen disables at speed and the tactile joystick is a comparative delight. The display sticks out of the top of the dash so when you are looking at it you can still see the road beyond it.
My partner and I test drove a Honda with no volume knob. You have to use the touch screen. Wtf? I am so glad we didn't buy that car. I now have two base model standard transmission cars, mid-2010s, neither of which suck and both of which are in good condition. Never gonna trade these cars in. Not even for a Bentley!
I have a 2020 CX5 and really appreciate the physical buttons. I like the dial as well. They went to touch screen for the 2026 model though and removed the dial. Dumb.
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