Be very wary of All Driver Assist Technology

Here is my personal experience. Last summer to go to Tetons, Yellowstone, Glacier National Park, Banff and Lake Louise over a 5 week period we drove our then new 2022 Subaru Ascent with Driver assist technology.

HOWEVER, Newer cars like this are sort of like driving an Apple Computer, because even though it is a gasoline engine (an aircraft engine at that) you must be really really careful with all driver assist technology. 

For example, my wife doesn't trust any of it.

But, of course, I'm a technophile and she a technophobe which means she mostly doesn't trust technology much if at all even though she is good mostly with a computer and online stuff like that and Zoom and all that too. But, generally speaking she doesn't trust technology very much.

So, the one to always use Cruise Control was me, while only one of my children likes cruise control on her Subara all wheel drive Forrester. She has the part that really works well which is Cruise control with Brake assist.

What does this mean?

It means that if you set your cruise control for any speed and your car senses another car in front of you close enough your car brakes and slows down and keeps whatever distance you have set for it back from the other car. 

When I use brake assisted Cruise control (this is the bees knees) in most cars and trucks. 

This is the one you can use and you are relatively safe!

But, when you let the car steer itself you are much less safe and have to REALLY REALLY REALLY be on top of what it is doing or else you will die or wind up in a ditch.

Why?

Because first of all full driver assist technology that steers your car usually wanders right and left in your lane all the time. BUT, if you are driving on a freeway by a truck it sometimes will steer you too near that Semi or other truck and this can be scary.

I used to fight this by steering away from the trucks but then often the technology will fight you on the steering wheel and this gets dangerous pretty fast.

So, my solution is that I disengage the driver steering technology as I approach a semi Truck on a freeway where I'm in the fast lane and it is in the slow lane. This way I can manually keep enough distance between me and the semi or other truck that I feel safe in my car.

Then when I pass that truck or a string of semis I then re-engage my automatic steering if it is safe to do this.

But, like I said I find no fault at all with the brake assisted Cruise control and see it as one of the best things invented for drivers driving long distance ever.

However, driver assist Steering generally isn't safe enough for most drivers to be using. And if you are naturally a very co-ordinated person with really good reflexes and likely good at sports or jogging or riding bicycles you might be okay using automatic steering techonology on the open road where there isn't much traffic out in the country.

However, if you are not a hand eye co-ordinated person you shouldn't likely use automatic STeering at all because it's sort of like supervising a child driving your car.

Because you never know in that moment what AGE your child driving your car is and that can be really really really scary for all drivers.

So, if you imagine your 5 year old child driving your car by sitting on your lap, this is pretty much what it is like using driver assist technology.