Yeah... and I bet there are more scam buybacks in CA than actual/legitimate ones. It's just so biased over there that you can lemon out almost any car with minor issues even if it doesn't have any serious issues. Just bring it over and over for a non-existent issue and let it set enough # of days to get all your money back.

 

If you don't use cruise control (adaptive or not regardless) am sure you are a minority as far as that usage style. Luckily manufactures care more about what the majority of their customers wants, and in this case, most of us want cruise control and many of us want adaptive distronic features too. It's not useless according to most people (the proof is that almost every car that are custom orders has the optional package for distronic plus).

 

This just isn't true. There are a lot of great safety features on modern cars. Blind spot monitoring, cross traffic alert. Emergency braking helps to combat distracted driving. I love Distronic, it takes so much of the stress out of driving on a long trip.

 

I agree! I don't even understand how people drive hours and hours without lane keep assist when the feature is available and choose to not use it.
The last car I owned that didn't have some form of lane assist was my GL X164. Every car I've owned since then had some sort of lane departure/keep assist and adaptive cruise (and it was a must have for me since then).

 

I guess you could then get a good deal and good vehicle on a lemon lawed vehicle from California but only would make sense if you plan on keeping the vehicle till the wheel falls off and not selling it.

 

The data on ACC is something I’ve researched previously; it wasn’t as clear-cut as I had expected. As I read more about it, problems emerged that hadn’t been immediately obvious to me in defining its efficacy.

There is no systematically organized, comparative data collected during accident investigations that shows which features (if any) were available on the vehicles involved—and of those, which were actually in use at the time. Even if a large dataset did exist, it would still be less conclusive than hoped, due to the constant evolution in both the number and type of ACC features available over the years during which the data was recorded. It becomes difficult to establish a truly data-driven proof when what you’re attempting to measure is in flux, and the data itself is a patchwork of whatever information was collected by different cities, counties, and states.

The second issue is closely related: you also have accidents caused by ACC. So what you're really trying to define is a net gain—or loss. These ACC-related accidents are usually of a certain type: the driver has completely relinquished control to the system and fails to intervene when necessary. Tesla, in particular, has made headlines on this point in recent years. And just like with the broader lack of comparative data, it's often unclear whether ACC was even available in a given accident, and if so, whether it was active—and further still, whether its use (or misuse, more accurately) was a contributing factor. Nearly all current ACC systems still require that the driver remain attentive at all times.

The most valuable data would show how many accidents didn’t happen—for example, instances where ACC-activated emergency braking prevented a rear-end collision, or when the system nudged the car back into its lane after the driver drifted out while fiddling with the infotainment menu. Or any other intervention that led to an accident being avoided. But we don’t have a large dataset that shows nothing happened.

Probably the most reliable fact we do have is that redundant safety systems are, on average, more effective at preventing accidents than a single system alone. When ACC is available and in use, the driver and ACC together form a redundant safety system. When ACC is either unavailable or not in use, you’re back to a single line of defense—the driver.

Anyway, to wrap this up: the data does show that ACC increases safety—but it’s not the across-the-board slam dunk I thought it would be.

 

When we take the Pacifica on trips I really miss it. Has radar cruise but no lane assist.

 

2 months ago I was driving on Austrian highway with cruise control on. I was texting on a phone with putting so much trust in cruise control (i know this is wrong).
My s class drove over the outside line without giving me any signal, no vibrations, no sound, no alter, and I hit the side of the highway.

Ended up replacing 2 doors, front and rear fender, repainting half of te car, 20k in damage.
Luckily I have a good painter so you cannot notice anything is done, but do not trust to auto pilot, distronic, etc.

 

They are assistive systems after all, only tesla calls theirs autopilot. MB has an autonomous system on certain S Class and EQS but not fully rolled out yet or ready.

Was the lane keep set to late?

 

I'm surprised the system didn't start dinging at you to take control of the wheel. When she/it/he/they/them notices my eyes are not straight ahead (such as typing or texting) it will start beeping at me until I look forward.