Lane Keeping
07-14-2021, 03:21 PM
#1
Lane Keeping
I just bought my Advance a couple days ago and the drive home on the freeway gave me a chance to shake down the lane keeping option. Let me start by saying that it was a must have feature for me after driving a couple of Teslas last year.
Tesla is probably the gold standard for lane keeping, although I never drove a newer Cadillac and that system is supposed to be good as well. I drove a Telluride, Pallisade, X5 and Highlander and the MDX is right at the top, however I came away with a couple of thoughts.
1. It really is for freeway or highway driving, preferably on straight stretches.
2. Even on straight freeways, it will lose lock going by an exit where the right lane marker either disappears, is dashed or faded.
3. Curves really stress the system and the car wanders from side to side more. This is usually where it will lose a lane marker recognition and start to drift out of the lane.
4. It seems to be a bit worse at night, though that was on a highway, not a freeway
5. The system expects you to be 'participating' in the driving, or at least what's what I inferred from the message when it thought I was not engaged. I guess it measures torque on the steering wheel. You can't just be touching the wheel, you have to be exerting some force from time to time. A good thing.
6. This can be more stressful than driving without it. You 'have' to be engaged and know when the danger zones are coming (usually curves).
I guess I'd say that it's a good thing on freeways that are mostly straight, and combined with the very capable adaptive cruise control it can lull you to sleep, but in any event will reduce your workload. But you really do have to be engaged and expecting it to veer off the road at any moment. On a local road, when we came up to a bridge where the shoulder went from 6 feet to 2 feet it broke lock and headed for the right side of the bridge which by then was very close. Now when I approach a bridge my spidey sense starts tingling. That pretty much convinced me to only use the LKA on freeways or highways, though on highways I'd probably be more alert.
Overall I think it's a nice system to reduce fatigue on a long trip but I think I'll need a lot more miles to know what to expect so my stress level can go down.
Interested to hear other people's experience with this.
Tesla is probably the gold standard for lane keeping, although I never drove a newer Cadillac and that system is supposed to be good as well. I drove a Telluride, Pallisade, X5 and Highlander and the MDX is right at the top, however I came away with a couple of thoughts.
1. It really is for freeway or highway driving, preferably on straight stretches.
2. Even on straight freeways, it will lose lock going by an exit where the right lane marker either disappears, is dashed or faded.
3. Curves really stress the system and the car wanders from side to side more. This is usually where it will lose a lane marker recognition and start to drift out of the lane.
4. It seems to be a bit worse at night, though that was on a highway, not a freeway
5. The system expects you to be 'participating' in the driving, or at least what's what I inferred from the message when it thought I was not engaged. I guess it measures torque on the steering wheel. You can't just be touching the wheel, you have to be exerting some force from time to time. A good thing.
6. This can be more stressful than driving without it. You 'have' to be engaged and know when the danger zones are coming (usually curves).
I guess I'd say that it's a good thing on freeways that are mostly straight, and combined with the very capable adaptive cruise control it can lull you to sleep, but in any event will reduce your workload. But you really do have to be engaged and expecting it to veer off the road at any moment. On a local road, when we came up to a bridge where the shoulder went from 6 feet to 2 feet it broke lock and headed for the right side of the bridge which by then was very close. Now when I approach a bridge my spidey sense starts tingling. That pretty much convinced me to only use the LKA on freeways or highways, though on highways I'd probably be more alert.
Overall I think it's a nice system to reduce fatigue on a long trip but I think I'll need a lot more miles to know what to expect so my stress level can go down.
Interested to hear other people's experience with this.
07-14-2021, 04:01 PM
#2
mrgold35
I use RDM, ACC, and LKAS on road trips for my 18 RLX and 19 MDX (keep RDM on all the time). I use it for driver assist/alerts and not for a replacement of driving function like you see in Tesla YouTube vids with people sleeping or jumping in the back seat. I run into the same issue as you with unable to read some lane markings, veering off to one side if marking are not there suddenly, or LKAS getting confused with long tar patches for cracks in the direction of travel. I treat it like a back seat driver that doesn't annoy you.
07-14-2021, 04:06 PM
#3
One addition that, when I think about it seems obvious. When driving faster, IE at freeway speeds, the irregularities of the lane markers are less of an issue which is why the experience is better and less stressful when I was on the freewayl
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