Sort of autonomous car

Technology
1

My car is not autonomous, but it has some features that an autonomous car would have. The adaptive cruise control is nice and I’m finding that it’s actually nice around town as I can set it at the speed limit, say 35 mph and if the car in front of me is going slower, it will slow down as needed. The other day I was curious as to if it would actually stop and I had the chance to test it. Traffic was slowing gradually as we approached a stop light, so I had my foot positioned over the brake…but the car did stop. Even weirder, when the traffic moved, the car started moving again. A very unusual feeling.

I tried another one where I was going 35 and approached a car stopped at a light…again, my foot poised over the brake…and just about the time I was ready to override everything, the car decelerated and stopped…although there was a moment where I wasn’t sure. I’m just not sure that I could get used to that since I don’t like to wait until the last minute to brake. IT was fun to play with though. The one thing i’m not sure of…if a car in front of me is turning and my car starts to slow down rather quickly…does it operate the brake lights? I can’t tell and I haven’t tried it at night. At any rate, I’m not sure I’ll be comfortable at all relying on my car to stop itself…even though it has shown that it is perfectly capable of doing that.

2

I test drove a car a couple of weeks ago that will also straighten you out on the highway if you are drifting out of your lane.

3

My Mazda does that to a degree, although Mazda has said that their belief is that the driver is the ultimate authority. If I drift out of my lane without a signal, there is a slight input to straighten up and put you back in your lane, but it’s easily overridden. Their reasoning (which as cyclist I appreciate) is that you might move to the left to pass something like…a cyclist…and anything stronger may put you closer to the cyclist that they or you intended. And I have had it do that when passing someone on a bike…a slight tug to ask “do you mean to do this”

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