Cruse Control

Strider590

RichardD1970 wrote: »

The "element of truth" is that when in difficult conditions, ie heavy rain, snow, ice etc, the driver should be in full control of the vehicle, not let an autonomous system take care of things.

How does the car and cruise control read the speed of the vehicle? By the turning of the wheels.

So, surely, if the wheels start to go faster, due to aquaplaning or loosing grip on ice, the cruise control will think the car is accelerating and ease off the gas.

Seems logical to me anyway.

Yes/No

If you hit water with CC on, the car is going at a set speed and can only go slower. Correct?

The CC will now try to get the wheels turning at the correct speed and if the car is now physically going slower than the correct speed, it'll just keep spinning the wheels at that set speed despite there being no grip.

The cleverer systems will use the ABS sensors on all 4 wheels to determine speed and this will be MUCH safer, however it's impossible to know if this is the case on any given vehicle.

zappahey

motorguy wrote: »

Instinct should be telling you where the brake pedal is. If you're having to think about finding it with your foot, you're doing something wrong.

You say that but, having been there, done that and got the t-shirt, when that moose looms out of the darkness it's very easy to miss the pedal when your foot is resting somewhere other than the accelerator pedal.

Iceweasel

zappahey wrote: »

You say that but, having been there, done that and got the t-shirt, when that moose looms out of the darkness it's very easy to miss the pedal when your foot is resting somewhere other than the accelerator pedal.

That may well be true when you first experience Cruise Control, but it should soon become 2nd nature where to find the brake pedal.

You need to brake for lots of reasons - not just for a moose - and most folks learn quickly.

It's a bit like a colleague of mine who said that automatic gearbox cars were dangerous as when you come to a halt and 'instinctively' put your foot on the non-existent clutch pedal it's very easy to hit the brake pedal so hard that you hit the windscreen

He wanted a smaller brake pedal.

When I asked about after a few weeks - he just laughed - so did I.

zappahey

Iceweasel wrote: »

That may well be true when you first experience Cruise Control, but it should soon become 2nd nature where to find the brake pedal.

Not necessarily first experience of cruise control, more first attempt at an emergency stop from cruise control. I will confess that my feet were a long way from the pedals as a result of complacency on a long, empty freeway at midnight.

iolanthe07

Remember these are the people that had to be told not to use cruise control on an RV while making a cup of tea in the back,

This story turned out to be an urban myth.

Johnmcl7

iolanthe07 wrote: »

Remember these are the people that had to be told not to use cruise control on an RV while making a cup of tea in the back,

This story turned out to be an urban myth.

As is the hot coffee one at least in the sense people understand it, the issue wasn't that the coffee was hot but that was it was far hotter than it should have been and caused serious burns. However people still parrot the myth that it was a stupid lady who didn't know coffee was hot.

The twist is of course some idiots have been hopping into the back seat to show off the new auto drive feature on Teslas forcing them to restrict the feature:

http://home.bt.com/tech-gadgets/tech-news/watch-a-tesla-being-driven-in-autopilot-from-the-back-seat-11364015490945

John

neilmcl

zappahey wrote: »

Not necessarily first experience of cruise control, more first attempt at an emergency stop from cruise control. I will confess that my feet were a long way from the pedals as a result of complacency on a long, empty freeway at midnight.

You shouldn't drive with your feet on the dash then

Dandytf

Late finish tonight.

Tried a we 60 then 50 due to medium traffic.

Not as much fun as when I 1st used CC last year.

Is it me or does CC accelerate to pre set speed very much quicker than I would drive normaly?

Feels like the car is super powered or was it the wet motorway.:o

thescouselander

I usually find cruise control accelerates at a leisurely pace - my current car is particularly slow to accelerate while on cruise control.

EssexExile

My cruise control accelerates a lot faster than I would, but then I am an old fogie. Just about the only place I use it is on the M6 toll, everywhere else it doesn't seem worth it.