Road Sign Assist on new vehicles

[Primus1]

As with rear cross traffic alert, blind spot monitoring and speed limiting via traffic sign I use these as a guide only, nothing beats the Mk 1 eyeball , safety systems are now more prevalent on modern cars but people shouldn’t just rely on these systems alone, some kind of over speed  warning both visually and audibly can help prevent accidental straying over the speed limit..

[Cyker]

21 hours ago, Primus1 said:

I really like the ford system as fitted to my puma, if you set the limit, the tsr reads the sign and adjust the speed, so in theory it will stay at say 30 mph, until it sees say a 40 mph and it adjusts the limit to this , however, it doesn’t always work, sometimes it doesn’t read the signs at all and sometimes it works faultlessly, you can set it to 10% so it will limit you to 33mph in a 30, as I understand it the Toyota system doesn’t do this, but as long as it gives an audible signal if you exceed the limit, then I guess that’s ok….will they have fixed the kph issue on the 23 Yaris cross?, hopefully mines due in April…

So there is a mode you can enable, where it will put a green box around the speed limit, and if you press in the direction of the speed limit sign change (e.g. if your cruise control is at 30 and the car sees a 40 sign, you push up once on the CC control), the CC speed will jump to 40 instead of you having to push up 10 times.

However it's very very buggy. I tried it and it worked most of the time, but would occasionally do something totally wrong, like set the CC speed to 20mph instead of 40mph which made the car brake really hard, so I prefer to do it manually...

 

[Roy124]

I think Highways authorities are going to have to up their game as well.  There is one interesting stretch entering a village in England's smallest county.  As you approach there is an artificial road block narrowing the road to a single carriageway with a give way sign.  The village name has a prominent 30 sign, just the one.  Now beyond this choke point, and some 100 m on is a pair of 30 mph signs.  

If you return to leave the village there is a pair of 40 mph signs on the back of those 30's.  What is the speed limit before that village sign with its 30?  Is it 30 downhill and 40 uphill?  Who knows?

[Yugguy1970]

Well I've been hoist by my own petard as I've just been flashed on the M1 cos I ignored the speed camera warning  🤣

First points in 20 years dammit.

[Cyker]

11 minutes ago, Roy124 said:

I think Highways authorities are going to have to up their game as well.  There is one interesting stretch entering a village in England's smallest county.  As you approach there is an artificial road block narrowing the road to a single carriageway with a give way sign.  The village name has a prominent 30 sign, just the one.  Now beyond this choke point, and some 100 m on is a pair of 30 mph signs.  

If you return to leave the village there is a pair of 40 mph signs on the back of those 30's.  What is the speed limit before that village sign with its 30?  Is it 30 downhill and 40 uphill?  Who knows?

They don't care, they've gone mad with forging ahead with their Smart Motorways. The ones that they've supposed to have stopped building while an investigation into their safety is completed.

I don't know what's happened with their planning department in general, but it's like nobody in it actually drives a car. New road designs are often badly laid out, with poor visibility and confusing lane layout. Even lights are timed poorly, creating more traffic instead of promoting smooth traffic flow.

Sign placement is abysmal; Often they put it with no thought of how you drive - e.g. on the A10, the change of one stretch from 40 to 30, when they finally put up the 30 sign, it's in such an awkward place that it's obscured by the A-pillar as you come round the roundabout, and also is well away from your eye-line if you're being observant, e.g. keeping your lane and maintaining spacial awareness of other cars.

Other signs they put behind existing signs or use really small signs that are impossible to read without focusing on them or if you're stopped.

It's such a contrast with the intuitive designs of older roads!

[Primus1]

57 minutes ago, Yugguy1970 said:

Well I've been hoist by my own petard as I've just been flashed on the M1 cos I ignored the speed camera warning  🤣

First points in 20 years dammit.

Surely you’ll be offered a speed awareness course, unless it was a silly speed, or you’ve done a course recently 

[Yugguy1970]

1 hour ago, Primus1 said:

Surely you’ll be offered a speed awareness course, unless it was a silly speed, or you’ve done a course recently 

No, not a daft speed, did a course years back so aye maybe I'll be lucky.

[FROSTYBALLS]

Think you're unable to do a speed awareness course if you get caught again within 3 years - so if it has been 20 years since your last speeding offence, you should be offered one this time.

[Derek.w]

I am use to seeing no speed limit reported or I am speeding when I am not.

Just think if it was a self drive vehicle without a steering wheel or pedals how far you would go before disaster strikes.

[anchorman]

On some stretches of the M180/M18, it shows 50mph where contraflows used to be.   If you’re going to link it to GPS, make sure the confounded things are updated.  

[Cyker]

I just feel the system is a massive waste of money and resources, esp. in the face of this continuing chip shortage; What is even the point of it unless it is 100% accurate? Hypothetically it would be an useful assistance for a driver if they missed a sign due to e.g. avoiding a family of ducks or something, but given how inaccurate it is and that it's inadmissible in a court of law, it's more of a hindrance than a help.

If my car was fully autonomous and relied on such a system, I'd have been forced to sell the car by now from the amount of speeding fines it'd racked up alone!  

A qualified driver should not need such a system anyway; If they do then maybe the DVLA should think about how they grant licences to people.

 

[Roy124]

Cyker, the same is true of MyT app. It must return 100% of the data.  It should also log all maintenance activity.  

My previous car included an insurance item and new washer pump but the more significant Battery replacement was omitted. 

[anchorman]

6 hours ago, Cyker said:

I just feel the system is a massive waste of money and resources, esp. in the face of this continuing chip shortage; What is even the point of it unless it is 100% accurate? Hypothetically it would be an useful assistance for a driver if they missed a sign due to e.g. avoiding a family of ducks or something, but given how inaccurate it is and that it's inadmissible in a court of law, it's more of a hindrance than a help.

If my car was fully autonomous and relied on such a system, I'd have been forced to sell the car by now from the amount of speeding fines it'd racked up alone!  

A qualified driver should not need such a system anyway; If they do then maybe the DVLA should think about how they grant licences to people.

 

Why did they cross the road 🤔

[Cyker]

Well you know those ducks, they're a law unto themselves!  

 

[Rhymes with Paris]

I used to have a small ornamental pond in the back garden, small as it was, the overflying ducks took a fancy to it a few times.

And a couple of them, male and female, maybe married, not sure, landed there and floated about a bit.

Maybe as a refuge from the feral youths in the nearby local park with a lake,who I caught one day throwing stones and half bricks at a family of ducks with new ducklings crossing from on side of the park to the other.

It was a long while ago, when I was much fitter, and was walking my dog,he was a gentle doberman/German Shepard cross, and like me, showed his displeasure at these cretins.

 

[Roy124]

Only yesterday, driving up the lane home we saw a black bird eating worms on the road.  I lost sight of it behind the bonnet.  We backed up, it had moved to the side but still intent on its breakfast. 

[forkingabout]

26 minutes ago, Roy124 said:

Only yesterday, driving up the lane home we saw a black bird eating worms on the road.  I lost sight of it behind the bonnet.  We backed up, it had moved to the side but still intent on its breakfast. 

Over the last 27+ years of driving, I've found nearly all birds eating on the road will get out the way of approaching cars, sometimes its near enough to trigger a front parking sensor as they fly away.

Apart from for pigeons - 3 sky rats have failed to get out of the way so far in my driving career. 

[anchorman]

17 hours ago, Cyker said:

Well you know those ducks, they're a law unto themselves!  

 

I was expecting you to say “to get to the other side 😉”.

[Cyker]

Well I didn't want to sound like I was trying to Quack bad jokes... I sometimes feel that's a Mallardy people aren't always Down with on here...

 

[dannyboy413]

Well, that is eider daft ..... or silly! 😀

[Rhymes with Paris]

Always a good idea to carry duckt tape when out and about in your motor in case anything comes loose.

It can even temporarily fix a flapping wing to get you home.

Especially useful if you cannot orange breakdown recovery straight away.

[anchorman]

7 minutes ago, Rhymes with Paris said:

Always a good idea to carry duckt tape when out and about in your motor in case anything comes loose.

It can even temporarily fix a flapping wing to get you home.

Especially useful if you cannot orange breakdown recovery straight away.

Those ideas fit the bill.  

[anchorman]

Two ducks flying over Belfast.  One said quack, the other one said I’m going as quack is a caan.  

[Jimota]

Nobody has mentioned the Grouse which is probably the most stupid bird in existence.  A number of years ago, during a lovely  New Years Day drive through the countryside of South Lanarkshire, I negotiated round a very tight bend in the road with an oncoming Land Rover in front of me.  In between the two vehicles there were a couple of Grouse messing about and rather than fly away, they flew directly onto my windscreen causing an almighty bloody mess.  My wife was really upset about the outcome and I had to steady her nerves on the return home by pouring ourselves a double Grouse whisky.

[Cyker]

I don't think I've even seen a live grouse in real life! Only bits of them occasionally   They may as well be mythical as I'm more likely to see one on the aforementioned bottle of whisky

Not very common around London I guess... they've probably all been eaten by all the fatcats (figuratively and literally) we have here