Thanks, I have updated my post accordingly to note that.
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You have been driving safely for many years without the need of this type of assist feature as you have indicated in a prior post.
I think you are really at the point where you just need to make a decision.
Turn off the AEB assist and then know it will not cause an issue you do not want,
or, get another car.
Waiting for the car maker to find a fix, or release a computer system upgrade, could be a long wait.
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A woman on a mobile phone walked straight out in front of my vehicle on a zebra crossing. I stomped on the brake of course and the AEB activated but failed to stop me in time. I hit her, broke her collar bone and ended up in Court where I received a $1,000 fine and licence suspension for 6 months.
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Not being there I cannot comment on the circumstances but we have become accustomed to watching for pedestrians near zebra crossings because they are unpredictable, and so many do not bother to check traffic just walk right through.
Having the right of way is one thing, but being oblivious and stepping in front of existing traffic that could never stop for you no matter how it tried is another.
Thanks for sharing.
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AEB or was it ABS? AEB should be auto activated when it detects a possible collision no need to step on brakes to activate it. ABS stops the brakes from locking completely thus maximising braking efficiency. Both work together to stop a vehicle when the driver is unaware of the risk of collision.
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AEB - automated emergency braking
ABS - antilock braking system
Good point. When stomping on the brakes the ABS will often kick in and the driver can usually feel a pulsing or vibration on the brake pedal as the ABS modulates braking.
Whether AEB would also kick in if the driver was already on the brakes (but not hard enough for the AEB to âbe happyâ about the rate of deceleration) is questionable, and I donât know the answer.
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SorryâŠMy bad. It was the ABS.
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No worries at all.
The other point which was an omission on my part is that insurers based their premiums on a number of factors:
- risk of the driver (history, age etc)
- cost to repair a particular vehicle make and model
- accessories or modifications to a vehicle
- active and passive safety features standard within a vehicle
An insurance company assumes based on the premium, that installed active and passive safety features of a car will be operational when the car is used on the road. If such features are disabled, then there is potential that the risks increase (such as turning off accident avoidance systems may increase the potential for an accident of more serious accident) thus increasing potential costs to the insurer. These higher risks potentially havenât been factored into the premium.
When we speak to our insurance broker, Iâll ask the question of them how an insurer would approach a claim should such features be disabled/turned off by a driver/owner.
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Hi all, I was listening to the wireless and this very subject came up. An auto club spokesperson stated they were concerned drivers with this technology have become accustomed to using it to itâs limits. The main concern of the spokesperson was if a vehicle with this technology has been involved in a traffic incident and required repairs that if the sensors and associated equipment were not re-installed correctly, the vehicle will not respond the way the driver is expecting in a future incident.
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If you run into the back of someone else, you having a dashcam will do you no good at all. No matter the reason âwhyâ the person in front stopped. Or how âsuddenlyâ they stopped, the responsibility to be sufficiently far enough behind in order to be able to stop in time is YOURS. There is no wiggle room on this. You will be booked by police, you will have to pay for not only your damage, but also the person in frontâs damage that YOU caused. Those are the laws.
Not always.
Over 40 years ago I was at the rear of a line of statiorary traffic on a main road in Cairns when to my horror, I saw in the rear view mirror that there was a senile old fool coming up behind me without fooking at the road ahead as he had made no attempt to slow down.
I grabbed the steering wheel tightly with both hands and held the brake pedal down with both feet but my vehicle was still propelled into the car in front. Thankfully I was wearing a seatbelt.
The steering wheel broke and the car was a write off and the police only charged the senile old fool who lost the licence which he should not have still had.
And that was decades before idiots using mobile phones whilst driving.
I believe when in a line of cars that cause a chain reaction, the last one in the queue, the senile old fool in your case, will be the responsible party.
The driver who caused the accident is the one deemed to be at fault.
I would argue that if the car in front suddenly slammed on the brakes for no apparent reason, then they were either driving dangerously or not in control of their car.
And they should be booked.
Of course if I was following too closely, it would not help my argument.
But you were stationary. The example used by the the poster, the person was MOVING and the car in front stopped and they ran up the back of the car which stopped. You are required to maintain a minimum distance between yourself and the vehicle in front when driving to allow you to stop in time. This person did not. They are at fault.
The same applies when you are stopped in traffic so as to try to prevent my experience from happening.
However, being rear ended at 60km/h requires much more separation than practical.
I have seen US footage of scammers dong that and then trying to shake down motorists who rear ended them until the victims pointed to their dash cams and the grubs hurriedly departed.
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This is the one who rear ended the vehicle.
The road rules are very clear that one needs to provide sufficient following distance between vehicles to avoid an accident in the time of an emergency. If you canât stop in time, then you have provided sufficient following distance and caused the accident.
I thought the sameâŠbutâŠit depends on the accident in question. If it was say one car into another and then a chain reaction with following vehiclesâŠthen there is potential for the responsibility to be pass back up the chain with each vehicle having some responsibility. The last vehicle in the pile up doesnât necessary hold all responsibility (as each of the vehicles in the chain wasnât providing adequate following distances).
If say 3 cars were stationary and a four car reared the car in front pushing all three other cars into each other, then the fourth car is most likely responsible for all the damage.
Cars reversing are also different if the reversing car is rear ended, likewise a head on collision where the car in from is pushed towards the car which rear ends it. These become even more complex and often why many serious accidents are investigated by a police accident unit to determine causes and who is at fault.
So, there isnât a simple answer for all scenariosâŠexceptâŠin the case that the car in front stops suddenly (say due to AEB activation), the car rear-ending it will be at fault as it was following too close.
Agree, itâs that simple
The AEB activating with full braking is no different in deceleration to the driver applying emergency braking to the limit of the ABS. If the driver following is too close to avoid a rear end collision, or lacking attention, the outcome will be exactly the same regardless of how or why.
If one is not prepare for a driver braking hard in an emergency, one cannot be prepared for the other.
Everything else is hypothetical, until it happens. The rest is up to the insurers, the police, and if need be a court and judgements.
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I doubt that would hold because the intermediate cars MIGHT HAVE been keeping adequate distance for their speed but were hit by one going faster who pushed them along and into each other.
Extreme example, Wilkes-Barre PA, USA (1974) - a semi lost brakes on an 8 km downhill and did not take any of the multiple truck runoff emergency âexitsâ. It got into the city streets at runaway speed. Some cars saw him coming in the rear view and got onto the sidewalk. The truck hit the trailing slower moving last car causing a chain reaction propelling the first car, stopped at a signal, to go through a house. 2 of the cars were photographed at about the size of an office desk, front to back. A number perished.
Even a âwhatabout the odd caseâ would not try to apportion blame to any of the cars hit. As you wrote, each accident/crash is an atomic event needing be considered individually, but most cases will fall into a norm where the last car gets the blame. There is usually no way to know what happened âin the middleâ.
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