Hypersensitive Crash Alerts - 2016 Honda Civic Long-Term Road Test

Edmunds.com

Hypersensitive Crash Alerts - 2016 Honda Civic Long-Term Road Test

Edmunds conducts a long-term test of a 2016 Honda Civic and finds that its crash alerts are overly sensitive.

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longtimelurker

"I'm tempted to turn it off." Wow - wouldn't want to do anything rash, though - huh? Does the car blow you in to your insurance company if you do?

Going forward, if there is any earthly means by which I can choose not to have this technology in my car, that's the course I will take.

What you have described here compares unfavorably, annoyance-wise, with a handful of thumbtacks tossed into the driver's seat.

misterfusion

At least Honda includes a centrally-located physical "Off" button, which is really all I could ask for. And I don't think the decision to use it would be that hard for me...

desmolicious

I think the real story here is Jason did not crash, so it worked..

carboy21

Dumb drivers need smart cars.
I would rather trust my driving skills. It has never let me down.

stever

Be nice to have some additional protection from the dumb drivers though. Nanny 'em up.

schen72

Doesn't matter how good of a driver you are. It won't prevent someone from rear-ending you when you're sitting at a stoplight. So I'm all in favor of these systems. BTW, you can adjust the forward collision sensitivity level in Honda/Acura cars. Go into the menu system. The settings are short, normal, and long.

jkavanagh

@longtimelurker, yes my main concern is whether the insurance company gets uppity in the event I turn it off and some incident occurs. Barring that, I'd have hit the 'off' button before my tuchus hit the seat fabric.

allthingshonda

Maybe the programming of the systems are done with the expected buyer in mind. A Civic is going to end up being the first car for a lot of young inexperienced drivers. The BMW will more likely be owned by much older experienced drivers. Honda may have programmed it to be more sensitive for the young distracted driver who maybe tweeting how sick they are of the traffic while creeping along.

schen72

jkavanagh said:

@longtimelurker, yes my main concern is whether the insurance company gets uppity in the event I turn it off and some incident occurs. Barring that, I'd have hit the 'off' button before my tuchus hit the seat fabric.

How would the insurance know what settings are configured at the time of accident? Also, these systems are not 100% foolproof. Sometimes they don't detect an object.

roadburner

I am so glad that my recent CPO purchase was NOT equipped with any "Helen Keller" packages.

schen72

roadburner said:

I am so glad that my recent CPO purchase was NOT equipped with any "Helen Keller" packages.

I'm never buying a car again without these safety packages. I'll likely never need them as I'm a very aware driver, but that one time I don't pay attention and it prevents me from rear-ending someone makes it all worth it.

roadburner

There's always public transit...
Seriously, I don't mind them as long as I'm not paying extra for them AND I can shut them off permanently without re-coding and/or drilling down through umpteen sub menus...

carboy21

schen72 said:

roadburner said:

I am so glad that my recent CPO purchase was NOT equipped with any "Helen Keller" packages.

I'm never buying a car again without these safety packages. I'll likely never need them as I'm a very aware driver, but that one time I don't pay attention and it prevents me from rear-ending someone makes it all worth it.

You must be happy to suffer the endless false alarms for that rare time it 'may' help you. You are better off using a public transport .

longtimelurker

jkavanagh said:

@longtimelurker, yes my main concern is whether the insurance company gets uppity in the event I turn it off and some incident occurs. Barring that, I'd have hit the 'off' button before my tuchus hit the seat fabric.

Are you serious? Is that going to be a thing, now? That insurers are going to look askance at claims in which the warning systems are turned off? That solidifies my decision. And this is not like turning off ABS or not using seat belts - ABS does a better job of preventing lockup than I ever could, and seat belts do a better job of holding me in place than I ever could, so it would never cross my mind to bypass those systems. Here we are talking about a system that does an abysmal job of warning of collisions, but we'll be penalized if we deactivate them - ?

longtimelurker

schen72 said:

Doesn't matter how good of a driver you are. It won't prevent someone from rear-ending you when you're sitting at a stoplight. So I'm all in favor of these systems. BTW, you can adjust the forward collision sensitivity level in Honda/Acura cars. Go into the menu system. The settings are short, normal, and long.

Um schen72...read the post again. He checked and it was ALREADY at the least sensitive level when it was acting like this.

drex2

I haven't been in much bumper to bumper traffic since I got my Civic Touring, but the Civic has given me far fewer false alarms than the Forward Collision warning on my previous Accord. Naturally, I stop close behind other cars at stoplights and stop signs and I don't recall any false alarms under those circumstances. So maybe that system on the test vehicle needs some service.

I do have the sensitivity level set for short, BTW.

schen72

carboy21 said:

schen72 said:

roadburner said:

I am so glad that my recent CPO purchase was NOT equipped with any "Helen Keller" packages.

I'm never buying a car again without these safety packages. I'll likely never need them as I'm a very aware driver, but that one time I don't pay attention and it prevents me from rear-ending someone makes it all worth it.

You must be happy to suffer the endless false alarms for that rare time it 'may' help you. You are better off using a public transport .

On my new ILX, I don't get hardly any false alarms. Maybe once a month. Maybe you guys all just tailgate too much.

schen72

longtimelurker said:

schen72 said:

Doesn't matter how good of a driver you are. It won't prevent someone from rear-ending you when you're sitting at a stoplight. So I'm all in favor of these systems. BTW, you can adjust the forward collision sensitivity level in Honda/Acura cars. Go into the menu system. The settings are short, normal, and long.

Um schen72...read the post again. He checked and it was ALREADY at the least sensitive level when it was acting like this.

Guess I missed that. On my cars, I hardly ever get false alarms. My ILX occasionally gives a false alarm, and my RL gives false alarms even less so. In the big picture of driving, these rare false alarms are very low on my annoyance list. If you're getting a lot of false alarms, maybe it's indicative of your driving style. On surface streets, my driving style is lots of coasting and often driving under the speed limit to avoid braking at every stoplight.

schen72

Everyone likes to picture themselves as the best driver on the road. I remember when ESC became standard that lots of people were crying about not being able to do power slides. Right... because that's how you drive when you're commuting or getting groceries.

carboy21

These "Helen Keller " safety packages are more suitable for elderly poor sighted and partly deaf drivers with very slow reflexes. Mr. Chen, are you one of them ?

Or those who text frequently while driving

desmolicious

These crash avoidance aids make it frustratingly difficult to get a good "here, hold my beer for a minute" moment on video.

schen72

carboy21 said:

These "Helen Keller " safety packages are more suitable for elderly poor sighted and partly deaf drivers with very slow reflexes. Mr. Chen, are you one of them ?

Or those who text frequently while driving

The hate on this post sure is high. I didn't know having safety features on one's car somehow reduced your manhood. I also like having ABS and ESC on my cars. I've never had an at-fault accident and I've never had the collision avoidance actually engage the brake for me. I very occasionally get the beeps when I'm coming up quick on a slow moving car. You guys sound like the B&B on TTAC who eschew all safety/convenience features because "back in my day" we didn't have fancy things!

The point that you all don't seem to get is, I personally don't need these safety features, but for a nominal fee, I'd rather have them. Because in 25 years of driving, I've never rear-ended someone, but maybe one day I'll be distracted and I would have rear-ended someone if not for the collision avoidance giving me an early warning. But if it really bothers you that much, just turn if off. At least on Honda/Acura you can turn if off permanently. It would be ironic if one day you did rear-end someone -- because you guys are always 100% attentive while driving, right? Never once answered a phone call or looked at something out the window.

texases

I wonder if it's set to max sensitivity by mistake. Those names aren't very descriptive. 

stever

schen72 said:

The hate on this post sure is high. I didn't know having safety features on one's car somehow reduced your manhood.

Now show up in a minivan. Putting a pile of bikes and kayaks on the roof helps a little.

roadburner

schen72 said:

carboy21 said:

These "Helen Keller " safety packages are more suitable for elderly poor sighted and partly deaf drivers with very slow reflexes. Mr. Chen, are you one of them ?

Or those who text frequently while driving

The hate on this post sure is high.

Perhaps your Automatic Forum Offense sensitivity needs to be set to "Low."

schen72

roadburner said:

schen72 said:

carboy21 said:

These "Helen Keller " safety packages are more suitable for elderly poor sighted and partly deaf drivers with very slow reflexes. Mr. Chen, are you one of them ?

Or those who text frequently while driving

The hate on this post sure is high.

Perhaps your Automatic Forum Offense sensitivity needs to be set to "Low."

No worries, I'm not offended. Just wondering if you all also derided the advent of ABS and airbags.

longtimelurker

drex2 and schen72 both have recent Honda products with this feature and claim they do not get the numerous false alarms...maybe there is something wrong with this LT car after all. Hmmm...I would be happy to see evidence that these systems are improving and the instances of false alarms and general fussiness are dropping in frequency and severity.

roadburner

schen72 said:

roadburner said:

schen72 said:

carboy21 said:

These "Helen Keller " safety packages are more suitable for elderly poor sighted and partly deaf drivers with very slow reflexes. Mr. Chen, are you one of them ?

Or those who text frequently while driving

The hate on this post sure is high.

Perhaps your Automatic Forum Offense sensitivity needs to be set to "Low."

No worries, I'm not offended. Just wondering if you all also derided the advent of ABS and airbags.

Read what longtimelurker posted above; ABS does a better job of braking than I can do because it can-among other things-handle split-mu surfaces and provide maximum braking at each corner.Airbags are fine, but then I always wear my seatbelt. Unfortunately, US passive restraint systems have to be designed to protect an unrestrained occupant, which I firmly believe is an unwarranted interference with the Law of Natural Selection.

carboy21

US passive restraint systems have to be designed to protect an unrestrained occupant, which I firmly believe is an unwarranted interference with the Law of Natural Selection.

Amen

thecardoc3

Hmmm. FWIW, SRS (supplemental restraint systems) fail to properly protect unrestrained occupants. The primary job of the seatbelts is to make sure the driver and passengers are in the right places for the airbag system to try and protect them. The system does react differently if the seat belt(s) are not used in the event if an accident as compared to how the system performs with them but with an unrestrained occupant all bets are off

thecardoc3

As for the Civic's, I'm tempted to turn it off

Yea, I know this is about the Civic, but I bet you haven't seen the TSB on the Accords about only using the factory windshield. Apparently the camera that is part of the crash avoidance system has trouble seeing through some aftermarket glass. There isn't a similar report on the Civics at this time, so we will have to wait and see if this crosses over in the future or not. But if you think just living with these systems is a pain, you should sit down and really study and see what it is taking to be ready to work on them when they act up.

As kids most of us dreamed about the day when we would have our own robots, well now we have them and I'm betting no-one thought of them as being something that would be sitting on four wheels in the driveway.

carboy21

The ABS and the VSC systems are designed in such a way that they stabilize the vehicle in an event where vehicle is already losing control via traction of the wheels and they work instantly.
Sensing systems and collision warning and lane assist systems are preventive warning systems and warn the drivers to to take action or brake the car in case of the collision warning system, hence lots of false alarms are inherent to their functioning correctly and timely. You don't find ABS/VSC interfering with normal driving or giving out false alarms.Neither does the SRS seat belt system gives out false alarms .

If one reduces the sensitivity of the collision warning system then it defeats the purpose for which it is intended and may not help during an actual need. So it is a no-win situation. Either suffer false alarms due to over sensitivity or downgrade its real usefulness by reducing sensitivity. I prefer to live without it and rely on my own judgement and reflexes

gauchograd99

IF I were to purchase this Civic (or any Honda product) that has this as a package I would opt for a model without it. While the other systems can be useful in that horrible moment when someone does something idiotic and causes an accident, ANYTHING that can take over the braking system as it is defined by Honda itself can also malfunction and CAUSE an accident. That really concerns me after hearing how sensitive it can be.