We drove from Tempe to San Dimas in southern California today in the new Honda Accord. The automatic features were very helpful.
ACC (Adaptive Cruise Control) is great. You can set your cruising speed, and as you approach cars from behind it will adjust your speed to keep a safe distance. This is getting to be fairly common; my 2011 Acura MDX had this feature, and I loved it then too.
LKAS (Lane Keeping Assist System) is new to me. This is the first year it’s been available in an Accord.
LKAS worked surprisingly well. If the lanes are well marked the car steers a straight path right down the middle of the lane, allowing the driver (me!) to relax. I found myself looking out the window at scenery more than I usually would, or turning to talk with Gisele, or paying closer attention to the radio. I could take both hands off the wheel to take the cap off my water bottle. It took a while before I really started to trust it, but it was pretty reliable.
There were a few quirks:
– Going around tight curves it tends to hug the outside of the lane. It never went outside the lane, but it got close, so I learned to help it out a little and keep it closer to the middle.
– As night fell we came to a stretch where the lines were poorly marked and the reflective lane markers were spread pretty far apart, and the LKAS had trouble seeing the lane. I actually had to steer the car part of the time!
– Where freeway exits are not dotted along the edge, the car would sometimes try to split the difference between the lane and the exit, kind of pointing at the gore. However, this wouldn’t last long before it would either re-find the lane, or warn me that it had lost the lane and ask me to take over.
– The worst part is that it would only function for 15 seconds at a time if I didn’t move the wheel a little to show I was still there. It would beep, and then shortly after turn off LKAS. I started to get in the habit of keeping one hand resting on my knee, lightly wiggling the steering wheel to keep it active.
This is a good glimpse into the future of driving. I expect the technology to improve every year until eventually we really have self-driving cars. Tesla is pretty close now to self driving on the freeways, though it can’t drive around town by itself like the experimental Google car can.
I don’t plan to ever buy another car that doesn’t have at least this level of automation.
9 responses so far ↓
1 Dale // Feb 25, 2016 at 8:54 am
The ACC on R&D’s new car is really cool. The only thing we realized was that even at the lowest sensitivity, the car stays back further than most drivers do. In stop and go traffic drivers in adjacent lanes are always cutting in ahead of you causing the car to slow even more. Did you find this to be true with the Honda?
2 Dick // Feb 25, 2016 at 9:25 am
Daryl’s ACC does not work in stop and go traffic like ours does so I doubt it is an issue. I forget what speed he said it cuts out at but it will not do like ours does and bring the car to a complete stop, then start from a complete stop again. That’s why I said I would love to combine our ACC with his lane keeping. Ours just pulls you back when you get too close to the edge of the lane. It does not keep you centered in the lane like his does.
3 Daryl // Feb 25, 2016 at 9:39 am
Richard is right that it won’t come to a complete stop and then restart, but it will slow way down on the freeway when there is congestion. As the car in front picks up speed, the ACC accelerates more slowly than other cars, definitely more slowly than I would. I didn’t have a lot of cars cutting in, but I expect they will.
4 Daryl // Feb 25, 2016 at 10:30 am
I was just reading the manual on ACC. Honda says it will work down to a stop. I know it worked on the freeway down to about 15 mph last night, but haven’t had a chance to try it to a stop. I also don’t know what will happen when the car in front starts up again. I have some experimenting to do!
5 Daryl // Feb 25, 2016 at 7:51 pm
After testing it out, I have to cancel the previous comment. Honda does make an ACC that works down to a stop, but they didn’t included it with our car. I wish they had, but it’s still a pretty good car even without this feature.
6 Donna // Feb 27, 2016 at 7:05 am
Sounds very cool, but also a little scary to me. I’m sure in most situations, it will be safer than human control, but there will be times that human interaction will avert a disaster.
7 Dale // Mar 5, 2016 at 6:10 pm
How does it work at night or in heavy rain or in snow? I know they say to turn off cruise control when it’s raining.
8 Daryl // Mar 5, 2016 at 6:40 pm
Dale, I’ll find out tomorrow. We will be riding this storm all the way to LA tomorrow, probably ride it to Phoenix on Monday too.
9 Dick // Mar 5, 2016 at 7:19 pm
Since Daryl’s relies on radar as well as video cameras, it may do better than our system does. If the sun is in the camera, or in fog, or heavy rain, or even a dirty windshield, our system may shut itself off and tells you it has. Fortunately it does that instead of making bad decisions.
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