on the way home today I had a close encounter with the back of a F150.

On the highway with moderate to heavy traffic. I took my eye off the road to see if I can move into another lane. The F150 in front of me slammed on the brake. When I saw the car I'm about 2 car length away with around 15 mph difference in speed.

Knowing the right hand side was open, I immediately slammed on the brake and steered right. The ABS kicked in, and the tires screeched a tad, but all of sudden I felt a few things...

1. The brake really clamped down, a lot harder than normal driving.
2. The throttle was immediately cut.

The last thing was kinda hard to explain, during the swerve to the right, it felt like a giant hand rotated my car to the left to counter after the swerve.

It was a really close call, I cleared his bumper less than a couple of feet.

I think VSA saved my butt today. I pride myself of being a good, attentive driver and it just goes to show that it only takes a couple of seconds to get into some major trouble.

 

Wow...Glad to hear that you made it through safe...You have to be careful and yeah it does only take a few seconds to get into trouble...

 

At least you didn't get hurt

Lots of people hate on VSA (there's even a thread about it!), but like you, VSA saved my ass as well

 

VSA is great for just these types of situations! Glad it worked out for you and you didnt freak and let back off the brake to fight it like some have. You went with the flow and it worked as designed.....gotta make you feel good about buying an Acura after that!

 

Glad to know that you made it out of that situation in one piece. This lets me know that I've got a good car that can help me get out of sticky situations like these.

 

I examined VSA on snow covered city blocks on sunday morning. It works awesome and I can feel individual wheel correcting as well as throttle controlled by computer.

Probably your left rear or left front wheel braked to correct the swerving.

 

You didn't experience VSA, you experienced BrakeAssist. The throttle was cut because you let off the pedal and slammed on the brakes. BrakeAssist detects panic braking and applies full braking force automatically until you let off the pedal. It's a nice feature.

VSA only controls yaw. Stopping uses the brakes for normal stopping, ABS for moderate braking with impending lock-up, and BrakeAssist/ABS for panic or emergency braking.

 

Research shows that in emergency situations, most drivers do not press the brake pedal as hard as they should. It's partially because their reflexes freeze in a panic, and they don't brake as hard as they should.

Therefore, Brake Assist was implemented to monitor the rate of braking performed by the driver, and when the rate passes a threshold which the program considers panic braking, it automatically applies FULL braking capability.

So 03CoupeV6 is most likely right. You probably experienced the Brake Assist kicking in, and the feeling of sudden throttle cut was because you let off the throttle, then immediately 100% braking was applied.

Either way, the car worked as it should.

 

I've been through this one as well, not only do the brakes engage but on an Auto the car will downshift and use engine braking as well. It was kind of odd when it happened, as I took my foot off the brake once the danger had passed and the car kept slowing down for a second after I let up ...

Either way glad I had it when I needed it.

 

I think VSA rotated the car when I was swerving. It really helped me stayed in the lane.

 

I took my Audi to the track last year. One of the excercise the instructors had us do is to hit a certain speed then slam on the brake to engage ABS. We practiced until we are used to ABS kicking in.

I would say that driver education course was the best "mod" I've spent on the Audi.

 

I was not familiar with the brake assist feature until this post. Thanks for the info!

 

That's what happened. You experienced BrakeAssist.

 

he experienced VSA after brake assist during swerving

 

VSA is documented to brake one tire which will correct yaw and swerve and control the car, that's what redirected it as stated above. After the Brake kicked in.

In my wreck it was so fast and I know I stomped on the brake anyway (taught that way by good ole dad), but she pulled out so close in front of me I just impaled her civic. No VSA or BA or anything could have stopped that.