Forward Collision Mitigation false triggers

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hedleyw

Active member
Joined
Dec 1, 2016
Messages
25
Has anyone been surprised by activation of the brakes by the FCM system unexpectedly? I’ve had this happen twice now where pedestrians have been on the other side of a country road and the brakes have slammed on - makes you feel a bit of an idiot as they look at you incredulously. Might have to disable it, which would be a shame.
 
This happened to me earlier this year only with a Volvo, and I was the pedestrian. I was standing on a corner, on the verge of a country road holding a mechanical strimmer waiting for the Volvo followed by an Audi, to pass. I had seen the Volvo and the driver had seen me. The Volvo then stopped abruptly and the driver didn't appear to know what was going on. Fortunately the Audi Q7 (following way too closely - as Audi Q7s are almost invariably known to do) managed not to drive into the back of it! (maybe the Audi also had some type of collision avoidance technology, although I'd have thought if it did it wouldn't be able to tailgate the Volvo like it was?). As the Volvo had no reason whatever to stop and the driver didn't seem to know why it had stopped, my assumption was that this was a Forward Collision Mitigation system decision, not the driver's.

What a stupid and dangerous piece of technology! It's hard to believe that car manufacturers are using it when it's clearly not 100% foolproof. I think you might want to disable it for your own piece of mind. I'm not at all sure as a driver that I have any intention of hitting any pedestrians anyway - a bit like the technology that prevents tailgating, I'm as capable of not tailgating now as I always have been. It's a bit of a worry to think that car driver's should need technology that prevents them from driving into the back of the car in front or hitting pedestians - shouldn't we be able to manage this ourselves? Actually, thinking about it quite a lot of driver's clearly can't.
 
NightPHEVer said:
This happened to me earlier this year only with a Volvo, and I was the pedestrian. I was standing on a corner, on the verge of a country road holding a mechanical strimmer waiting for the Volvo followed by an Audi, to pass. I had seen the Vovlo and the driver had seen me. The Volvo then stopped abruptly and the driver didn't appear to know what was going on. Fortunately the Audi Q7 (following way too closely - as Audi Q7s are almost invariably known to do) managed not to drive into the back of it! As the Volvo had no reason whatever to stop and the driver didn't seem to know why it had stopped, my assumption was that this was a Forward Collision Mitigation system decision, not the driver's.

What a stupid and dangerous piece of technology! It's hard to believe that car manufacturers are using it when it's clearly not 100% foolproof. I think you might want to disable it for your own piece of mind. I'm not at all sure as a driver that I have any intention of hitting any pedestrians anyway - a bit like the technology that prevents tailgating, I'm as capable of not tailgating now as I always have been. It's a bit of a worry to think that car driver's should need technology that prevents them from driving into the back of the car in front or hitting pedestians - shouldn't we be able to manage this ourselves? Actually, thinking about it quite a lot of driver's clearly can't.

I hate these gadgets, like the one that turns the hazard lights on under hard braking, if I feel people need the warning I will press the button myself. Those auto braking gadgets are just going to get you rear ended some day.
 
Mine is set to the shortest distance, but it has never braked for me. It has on several occasions given me a bleep and warning, which I believe also corresponds to the brake system being primed ready for action, but it has never been applied. It's usually when I'm coming up behind someone who I can clearly see is turning off the road in front of me, and I know they'll be gone by the time I get there. I wouldn't want to turn it off permanently, because (i) it has never (yet) caused me a problem, and (ii) my wife drives the car, and, well, you know..... :roll:
 
Mine did this; it needed an update from Japan ( by internet connection from the dealer) as the software was corrupted. Since then it works perfectly.
I can now drive with the system set to long distance, and it does sometimes give a warning, but it never slams on the brakes unnecessarily.
 
Mine used to drive me crazy, then I found out about the country/city (near/far) settings. It never actually braked the vehicle in distance mode, but did give me a lot of unnecessary warnings.

Since it's been in close mode, it has actually stomped on the brakes twice.

1. On a really gusty day, a bunch of leaves blew in front of the car, and some were momentarily on the windscreen. I'm not sure if it was the ones on the windscreen that were the problem, but the car slammed on the brakes. :shock:

2. The other was much better. Someone came racing up in a big four wheel drive, in the left hand lane on a six lane divided road (I was in the right hand lane, just about to turn off.) They jerked on the steering wheel to cut in front of the car in the centre lane and lost control of their vehicle. As they slewed across the road, the PHEV slammed on the brakes (I was trying to brake, but the car was quicker than me) and came to rest mere inches away from their car.

The bunch-of-leaves incident was immediately completely forgiven. :lol:
 
jaapv said:
The sensor is behind the grill.

Thanks for that. Wondered where it was.

Colour me surprised though, I would have thought that leaves on the grill would be far more common.

I think the thing I drove through was probably a "whirly" in the local parlance, "dust devil" in the USA.

A bunch of detritus (mainly leaves) that crossed the road in a spiral dance.

Either way, the car didn't like it one bit.
 
Okay, figure this one out. FCM falsed on an overpass with almost NOTHING ahead of the car. Didn't actually apply the brakes, but "BRAKE!" appeared in the display, and the system beeped, as you can hear.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCxZsamydUA
 
Second incident in two days. Seems to have trouble with cars hitting the brakes in lanes to the left? Or were the designers too stupid to actually use the info coming from the LDW system to figure out WHERE the lane is? It seems like the car that was hitting the brakes was almost directly in front of me at the time it happened, but that's not the direction I was driving because the lanes all curve to the right.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0O0IsHvnxE
 
To start off with, it might be wise to set it to "short"
There may well be something wrong with the system, mine never does this even when set to "long", but it does sometimes pick up objects by the wayside in curves. After all, it is just a stupid computer.
Curve+object approaching too fast right in front = FCM.

The FCM works with radar behind the grille. The LDW works with a camera under the mirror. The latter system is not reliable enough to integrate with the FCM; Lines on the road can be missing, crossing the lanes, etc.
 
My 2015 4hs used to trigger in multi-storey car parks till I set it to "short". I've only had it once since, when a car selected reverse instead of drive and backed out in front of me. It was quicker than I was at applying the brakes :shock:
 
jaapv said:
The LDW works with a camera under the mirror. The latter system is not reliable enough to integrate with the FCM; Lines on the road can be missing, crossing the lanes, etc.

Well Opel seem to think they have cracked this one. The brand new Insignia I had on hire in Nice last month, uses the LDW system to actually steer the car back into the lane for you - very disconcerting to have steering "snatched" from you at 80mph until you realise what is happening and get used to it. :lol:
 
Yes, but it won't function when the lines are faded, or criss-crossing the road after roadworks messed things up, etc. So even the Opel probably does not integrate the FCM with the LDW.
Volvo shivers your pants, I believe. At least the part of your behind that is nearest to the line crossed. :D.
 
jaapv said:
Yes, but it won't function when the lines are faded, or criss-crossing the road after roadworks messed things up, etc. So even the Opel probably does not integrate the FCM with the LDW.
Volvo shivers your pants, I believe. At least the part of your behind that is nearest to the line crossed. :D.

As the Opel system actually adjusts the steering direction I wonder what happens if the lines suddenly disappear mid-correction or when you are trying to change lanes? :eek:
 
greendwarf said:
jaapv said:
Yes, but it won't function when the lines are faded, or criss-crossing the road after roadworks messed things up, etc. So even the Opel probably does not integrate the FCM with the LDW.
Volvo shivers your pants, I believe. At least the part of your behind that is nearest to the line crossed. :D.

As the Opel system actually adjusts the steering direction I wonder what happens if the lines suddenly disappear mid-correction or when you are trying to change lanes? :eek:

As I understand it these systems won't 'fight' you if you indicate before manoeuvring, as you should of course ;)

Also firm manual steering action will over-ride the system and the system will back down.
 
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