Here's the Modern Safety Feature Motorists Hate the Most

Steph Willems
by Steph Willems

Passenger vehicles have never been safer, with a bevy of high-tech aids available to keep nervous motorists safe, and feeling safe.

For the most part, we enjoy these handy driver’s aids. After all, who wants to end up in hospital, or have their insurance company come collecting for an arm, a leg, and a few other pounds of flesh? However, one safety feature, found on an increasing number of new vehicles, has all the popularity of Chrysler’s grating Electronic Voice Alert of the 1980s.

We’re talking about the lane-departure warning. According to Automotive News, motorists don’t like it. Not one bit.

Consumer feedback consistently shows that motorists welcome systems designed to prevent a collision. Forward-collision warnings, often coupled with automatic emergency braking, remain popular — and with good reason. Motorists like a system designed to save their bacon and avoid (mainly) rear-end collisions. These are the type of collisions most motorists worry about.

Lane-departure warning, while designed to keep motorists safe, isn’t seen that way. Instead, most motorists see it as a nagging critic of their style of driving. The systems alert motorists if their vehicle leaves its lane without signalling.

David Kidd, a senior researcher with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, told AN that the group “had high hopes” for lane-departure warnings. They soon found that motorists didn’t like having a “turn-signal nanny” riding shotgun.

There’s a simple reason behind the negative reaction. “We are seeing benefits from other systems, but with lane-departure warning, we are not,” Kidd said.

An IIHS study found that two-thirds of drivers turn off the system, while less than 1 percent of drivers shut off the forward-collision warning. Drivers are also more likely to turn off the system if it uses audible warnings. Many drivers don’t use their turn signal when there’s no other vehicles around, and don’t like being bothered by the system. They also don’t like having their passengers hear it, as it reflects negatively on their driving.

This defeats the purpose of having the system, which is meant to alert drowsy or inattentive drivers headed for the ditch or the oncoming lane.

The solution could lie in simply changing the way the system warns the driver. According to the report, when General Motors switched from an audible lane-departure warning to one that sends vibrations to the driver’s seat, two-thirds of drivers left the system on.

[Image: Michael Gil/ Flickr]

Steph Willems
Steph Willems

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  • 427Cobra 427Cobra on Aug 30, 2016

    I find most of these safety nannies more of a distraction than an aid. There's too many of them. All of a sudden, you have bells & chimes going off all over the place & start looking around for the source. And yes... I have a vehicle with these systems. Luckily, it's a lease... and I'll be turning it in about 6 weeks from now. Like others, I'd prefer good ole visibility as opposed to all these electronic nannies. Once my Edge Limited goes back to the dealership, I'll start to daily my '08 Grand Marquis... only has 27k miles on it (was my grandfather's last car). When I bought my '16 Ram 2500 last month, I deliberately looked for a "lightly equipped" model, just so I could avoid all of the electronic crap... and was lucky to find just what I wanted. But that's me... to each his own.

    • Drzhivago138 Drzhivago138 on Aug 30, 2016

      We'll ignore that you're talking about how much you don't like modern technology by posting /on the Internet./

  • AC AC on Aug 30, 2016

    My girlfriend has this feature in her Outback, it is part of the "EyeSight" system. Lane departure drives me crazy when it gets it wrong. I don't mind being reminded that I've drifted from the lane, but when it beeps at me even though I am paying close enough attention to know I'm within my lane it makes me angry. I've even argued with the car. The worst behavior from the system I saw was in a construction zone with two sets of line striping offset from each other by several inches. The rest of the EyeSight system is nothing short of amazing. Blind spot monitoring is great, even though I look over my shoulder I still like having some extra confidence that no one is in the lane I'm signaling to move in to. Adaptive cruse control seems like a feature from the future, and it works really, really well. But the lane departure seems like a torture device meant to make people less healthy by raising their blood pressure.

  • AZFelix Hilux technical, preferably with a swivel mount.
  • ToolGuy This is the kind of thing you get when you give people faster internet.
  • ToolGuy North America is already the greatest country on the planet, and I have learned to be careful about what I wish for in terms of making changes. I mean, if Greenland wants to buy JDM vehicles, isn't that for the Danes to decide?
  • ToolGuy Once again my home did not catch on fire and my fire extinguisher(s) stayed in the closet, unused. I guess I threw my money away on fire extinguishers.(And by fire extinguishers I mean nuclear missiles.)
  • Carson D The UAW has succeeded in organizing a US VW plant before. There's a reason they don't teach history in the schools any longer. People wouldn't make the same mistakes.
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