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Comment by mort96 | Hacker News Reader

Surely they could've found a better way though than to make the car automatically swerve into oncoming traffic?

I'm 100% on board with the idea that the lane assist feature might, on average, improve safety in many conditions. Maybe enough to be a net win. But I'm absolutely certain that its terrible implementation (in legislation, not just in cars) leads to situations where it reduces safety. When I'm driving on small country-side roads without a center line, no amount of "but it reduces traffic fatalities on highways" will convince me that automatically swerving towards the oncoming semi trailer is safe.

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> When I'm driving on small country-side roads without a center line

My guess is that people drive these types of roads a lot less often than they swerve on highways. Hence the statistics working out. Steering into oncoming traffic does indeed sound, uhm, suboptimal though. :-/

All the cars I’ve driven with this feature vibrate the wheel when they trigger but don’t try to steer.

My Honda Ridgeline (2021, USA spec) has two modes…

Default is “sticker shaker” mode - if it senses lane departure, it shakes the wheel and displays a warning on the dash. On by default, but can be disabled after start-up.

The other mode is “lane-centering” - has to be turned on after start-up, and actively steers car to the center of the lane. Really only makes sense on a highway/interstate - clear lanes, no sharp turns, etc. On dual carriage way, it gets a bit “stupid” when turn lanes appear with a gap or change in lane marking - it thinks the lane got extra wide and tries to center, pulling me half into the turn lane.

But, like I said, it’s 100% optional, so I use it on the highway/interstate, but nothing smaller.

Sounds like the EU mandates “lane centering” all the time that can’t be easily disabled, which is pretty silly (if it behaves anything like the Honda system, whcih is only really designed for true interstate use).

> Sounds like the EU mandates “lane centering” all the time that can’t be easily disabled

I'm in EU, on my 2023 Civic it's off by default and needs to be enabled after every car start if you wanna use it. Also works pretty well, other than when driving straight into the low sun or in heavy rain at night. The collision warning and road departure warning are on by default, the last one can be disabled until car is restarted.

In fairness, I haven't done much experimentation. It jerks the wheel and that terrifies me. I don't know if it's a jerk back and forth to make the wheel vibrate or if it's a jerk to steer the car to the left, either would probably give me a feeling that the wheel is moving by itself and would probably be scary enough for me to disable.

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