Show Us Your Motors!

We have them in our trucks at work since 2021. The Mercedes Actros will drive itself, brake for roundabouts and change the speed according to the signs automatically. Basically all you have to do is steer. When it doesn't work it will not see the roundabout and continue to career towards it at 50mph and you have to intervene. Likewise with the emergency brake if you are going around a fast sweeping bend and a car is coming the other way it thinks you are on a straight bit of road and slams on the brakes. Same with bridges that are a bit tight it can also get confused and slam on the anchors.

I still drive with the emergency braking as despite its foibles it is truly a great bit of tech. The self driving stuff however gets turned off the minute i get in the cab. It is complete junk and years away from being any good.
 
MrRockliffe said:
The thing is, they are, independently, good systems. When they work properly, they’re extremely useful


However, garbage in = garbage out, and they’re typically not reliable enough to actually trust them.



Just on the way home from Gatwick last night, the BMW thought it was a 30 on the M23… Imagine if there was a speed limiter in place restricting me to 30, or constant beeping above the speed.
Click to expand...
Yes, agree. I recently replaced my car and bought a new Megane E Tech with Road Sign Assist. It is useless! It frequently misses the sign, miss reads the sign, reads a sign on the side road, always misses smart motorway signs, etc. As it is a pre July 2024 car I just have the little telltale in the instrument cluster which I ignore but if I had the speed limiter it could be dangerous.
 
The sign recognition in my Mazda CX5 is generally poor. It does better in Europe than in the UK though for some reason (apart from on unrestricted Autobahns and reads where there are different limits for different classes of vehicle). It does still read signs for side roads from time to time and is really slow to change the limit in the HUD when crossing from one limit to another.
 
Akagi said:
Given I've been caught speeding twice now and am due points on my license, I think I'd quite like a limiter I can switch on and off. :p
Click to expand...

My ford has just this. A speed limiter button that will limit the car to the speed limit it's read from the road signs. Can be turned on and off at the push of a button. Very handy when driving down roads that you know are completely lined with speed cameras and stops you from having to watch the speedo and keep tabs with the changing speed limits as it goes up and down between 60mph and 30mph as you go in and out of towns on country roads.

Only downside is that it just nullifies the accelerator pedal, so you don't realise how hard you're pushing. When leaving town and it jumps from 30mph to 60mph it can accelerate harder than you intended and get nagged at by the wife for driving too fast. Others above have commented on the system in their car being a bit crap. I find the ford pretty accurate, rarely gets the speed wrong.

mine is a 2023 though, so might be different to the current system. I don't get speed warnings, if I press the limiter button it just dulls the accelerator pedal as mentioned above. I personally don't mind the system as I can choose when to turn it off and on and i don't have any audible warnings. I think the latest 2024 systems beep at you to warn you which I think would be annoying.
 
Last edited:
Went for a drive through Oxfordshire as the weather was pretty good at the weekend. Roads were surprisingly quiet too.



Coming from an MX5 it's completely different in that an MX5 can feel like it's doing 60mph at 30, whilst the Elise feels like it's doing 30 at 60. Didn't expect it to feel so composed on a bumpy, flowing b-road, but then at the first damp/off camber corner you quickly remember it only has 195 road tyres at the front and slow it down a tad. Great piece of kit :cool:
 
Kenai said:
Where has this bit come from?
Click to expand...
www.autotrader.co.uk

Mandatory speed limiters on EU cars from 2024 | AutoTrader

All new vehicles sold in Europe – including Northern Ireland but not Great Britain – will be fitted with a mandatory speed limiter from 2024 to keep cars within the speed limits and boost road safety.
www.autotrader.co.uk www.autotrader.co.uk

To tackle this, manufacturers will have four options to choose from to alert the driver when they’re speeding:1. The driver’s foot will be gently pushed back2. The speed control system will automatically reduce the propulsion power, but you can override the system easily by pushing the pedal again3. The driver will be sent a flashing visual signal to point out you’re speeding. If you continue to drive over the limit, an audio cue will be activated; if you ignore this as well, both visual and audio cues will be used after which both cues will time-out4. Similar to the third option, the driver will first be sent a visual cue. If you ignore it, the pedal will vibrate. If you keep ignoring the combined signals, they will eventually time out. The regulation will assess the effectiveness of these different signals in December 2025 to figure out the best way forward. They will use anonymous data to find out the number of times cars were driven with the ISA switched off and on, number of times the ISA was set-off and overridden and the average time between the speed limiter being switched on and off.
Click to expand...

Okay perhaps its been over zealous journalists who have said it will later be disabled that you can switch it off but that does seem to be where they are heading.

Also this part alone from the directive should be enough for you to chose a car without one if possible

1. Vehicle manufacturers shall provide the approval authorities with the following information:

(a)ratios of the time driven or the distances that are travelled with the intelligent speed assistance systems switched on and switched off;

(b)ratios of the time driven or the distances that are travelled with the perceived speed limits being observed and being overridden, respectively;

(c)the average time elapsed between the switch-on and the switch-off of the intelligent speed assistance system by the driver, when applicable;

(d)The information referred to in the first subparagraph for the cascaded acoustic warning function, the cascaded vibrating warning function and the haptic feedback function shall be provided separately from the information for the speed control function.
Click to expand...

How long will it be before you start getting automatic speeding tickets based on the info your car has sent?
 
Greebo said:
Okay perhaps its been over zealous journalists who have said it will later be disabled that you can switch it off
Click to expand...

Yeah, the bit I was interested in that i've not seen in the legislation myself was the idea that there will be some sort of enforced OTA update to prevent switching them off.
 
Kenai said:
Yeah, the bit I was interested in that i've not seen in the legislation myself was the idea that there will be some sort of enforced OTA update to prevent switching them off.
Click to expand...

The whole directive is a fascinating read. They want breathalysers built into cars to come in for starters. And the fact it already states that this is just an assessment period of all the data recorded from everybody's ISA fitted cars before they decide what to do, suggests they plan further controls/measures. And it would be very simple to disable the switching off of the ISA system via OTA. I have had menu choices disappear on my BMW with updates before now.

But if your car doesnt have it (pre July 2024) then its definitely something that cant be forced onto you later
 
Last edited:
adam cool dude said:
We have them in our trucks at work since 2021. The Mercedes Actros will drive itself, brake for roundabouts and change the speed according to the signs automatically. Basically all you have to do is steer. When it doesn't work it will not see the roundabout and continue to career towards it at 50mph and you have to intervene. Likewise with the emergency brake if you are going around a fast sweeping bend and a car is coming the other way it thinks you are on a straight bit of road and slams on the brakes. Same with bridges that are a bit tight it can also get confused and slam on the anchors.

I still drive with the emergency braking as despite its foibles it is truly a great bit of tech. The self driving stuff however gets turned off the minute i get in the cab. It is complete junk and years away from being any good.
Click to expand...

I've not so far had braking assist kick in inappropriately even on bends, though it can get a bit enthusiastic with the audible warnings on S bends and wet weather. I was really glad to have it the other day when an old couple doing 40MPH in the left lane on a dual-carriageway decided to pull across, indicate and brake all in one to take a right hand junction and it would have been touch and go if I'd been able to react in time without the assist kicking - and that was with me being prepared for the possibility.
 
S2000 was sitting a little too low after fitting the Ohlins suspension. I grazed the front splitter on a speedbump.
So, raised it by 5mm all round. I did the front by lengthening the strut, the rear was a little too soft on its springs so rather than lengthen the struts, I added 6mm of additional preload.

IMG_1711.jpeg

IMG_1712.jpeg
It's on 15mm spacers all round which is as much as I can go without rolling the arches (which I won't do as my rule with this car is that any modification has to be reversible).

Oh, and before anyone says, yes, I know the headlamps have yellowed. I'm going to sand, polish, and re-seal them this weekend.
 
Last edited:
Sunset across the New Forest

UggeRAX.jpeg
YaGQEs2.jpeg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom