As the subject line states, has anyone figured out a way to extend the time between needing to squeeze the steering real when using the intelligent auto cruise feature?

thanks

 

Nope and from what I have experienced the time gets shorter if you repeatedly trigger the warning.

 

Works with a light touch for me. There was a discussion about this recently and some were having success with tying a weighted object around the wheel?

 

Hire a chauffeur...

 

or pay attention and drive

 

childish comment.

 

Very wise advice. In many places such as New York it is illegal to drive without at least 1 hand on the wheel.

 

NY, it may surprise some folks to learn, is not in fact the center of the universe😃
if you have ever driven across Texas for example perhaps my question would make sense for you.

cheers

 

NY was simply an example that popped up on a search. I've never driven there. I drive across Texas regularly visiting relatives on a circuit from Tampa to Midland to OKC then back to Tampa. I would never consider driving without at least one hand on the steering wheel. It is usually two - a habit from driving in SCCA events in the 1960's.

 

Since the requirement to have your hands on the steering wheel essentially at all times is a safety requirement, no the time cannot be extended. With the advent of capacitive steering wheels, the times have been shortened, as too many drivers have taken the liberty to treat these systems like self-driving systems, which they are not. It shouldn't take more than resting your finger on the rim of the steering wheel, though, but you essentially have to keep your hands on it.

I can understand your inquiry having lived in the Midwest and spent a lot of time in Texas for business. Most boring places I've ever driven. Endless straight, flat roads in the middle of nowhere. Florida is no better. I wish the US wasn't in the Stone Age when it comes to transportation. I spend lots of time in Asia and Europe. Just got back from another trip to Japan. Japan is now building a Maglev high speed train in addition to their existing high speed train between Tokyo and Osaka. Once completed, the journey will take about an hour at 314 mph capped operational speed. Less than half the time of the current high speed train and they run about every 10 minutes. It's the equivalent distance from San Francisco to LA, which easily takes 6+ hours by car and even flying easily takes 3-4 hours given that you first have to get to the airport with enough lead time for security and then from the airport to your final destination. High speed trains on the other hand drop you right in the center of town. It's asinine how far behind we are here and instead the tech bros think self-driving is the solution. It's still gonna take hours to drive long distances in a small metal box even if you don't have to do the driving yourself.

 

IMO public transport will never replace private transport. Most public transport is unclean and a health risk. Before I retired, I flew 4 times a week mostly on Learjet 35's and used private cars deployed by my clients. My schedule allowed for a 20-minute variance. The last time I flew from Los Angeles (BUR) to Concord (CCR) office to office trip time was significantly less than 2 hours. Trains are good in Europe. It is a shame that the US doesn't want to or know how to provide clean and timely public transportation. Even the airlines have trouble running on time. So much so that the government has skewed the performance stats by designating that a flight is on time if it departs or arrives 15 minutes late or both - a 30-minute variance.

 

Yes, if you have the privilege of flying private, then it's a very different story. You basically show up 10 minutes before, no security line etc. It's as easy as riding the train at that point. Very few people have this privilege. Riding public transportation in many places is no more of a health risk than being among people in general. I've been on trains in Japan during rush hour where my face was inches from the next person and I haven't been getting more sick than back home where I ride public transportation much less frequent. BTW, the more exposed you are to germs, the stronger your immune system gets, so isolation doesn't do you any favors.

All it takes is proper investment to make public transportation safe and clean. There's too much negative perception around public transportation in the USA. It's a myth that it is unsafe even in the current state. Statistically you have a far greater chance to being involved in an injury accident in your private vehicle than being a victim of a crime while using public transportation, but just like the proliferation of gated communities in the USA, Americans don't wanna rub elbows with people they consider beneath them.

 

Todays news
Amtrak passengers were stranded and furious for 24 hours with overflowing bathrooms

 

@ua549 are you suggesting that Amtrak is anywhere near a world class public transportation system? Amtrak is a joke at any level. It's best on the East Coast, but Amtrak is not what I have in mind. Just to give some counterpoints, though. A few weeks ago, one of the major Interstates here in the Bay Area was closed for much of a weekday in the south direction due to an overturned semi making everybody's commute hell for that day. People were stuck for hours in their car with no bathroom. I've been stuck for over three hours on the San Francisco Bay Bridge once due to a car fire on the bridge that closed the east bound direction. What was supposed to be a 20 minute drive home turned into an almost 4 hour drive and I had to go to a bathroom the entire time. Not to mention the I-80 highway closures towards Lake Tahoe every year that gets unprepared people stuck in snow storms as they ignored all warnings and decided to go skiing anyway. I mean the list goes on. There have been some major highway closures in recent years due to unforeseen circumstances. I-95 collapse in Philadelphia, sinkholes on I-80 in New Jersey and that doesn't include severe weather events that wreak havoc on the roads due to flooding etc. So lets not pretend private transportation doesn't experience major disruptions. Not to mention that about a plane full of people dies every day on US roads alone due to fatal accidents. Far fewer people die riding public transportation. We just ignore all those deaths because they happen spread out one by one and aren't newsworthy like a plane crash or train derailment killing a bunch of people all at once, and they can't be sensationalized on the 24-hour news channels like a random black kid shooting a white train rider.

 

Amtrack is nowhere near being a decent railroad let alone world class. However, it is the widespread line in the US, though it isn't a national line. I would walk before using Amtrak. That being said, I married into a railroad family in 1962. The relatives and their associates were all officers of the Union Pacific Railroad or the Rock Island Lines (acquired by the Union Pacific Railroad in 1974). Of course, the Union Pacific is a freight only line.

 

Geez - the OP just asked a simple reasonable question.

 

I totally understand that approach. I have a cross country road trip coming up and as others have noted, there are a lot of long straight roads with 80mph limits which are a perfect environment for hands free driving. I have been experimenting and just simply keeping one hand on the wheel, applying a little pressure, seems to work well. We usually fly JSX with our dog, semi private, with all the advantages, but we couldn't make their schedule work with ours so road trip it is!

 

If you've driven across Texas, try driving across Kansas, straight for miles and miles with nothing but wheat and corn for scenery. You can keep the wheel straight in North Dakota for a long distance too. Texas is downright invigorating compared with Kansas.

Everyone knows that Oklahoma is the center of the universe.

 

In contrast to meager passenger rail options in the US, bullet trains in China are great. Same with the Japanese bullet trains.

I've done Amtrak a few times on the East Coast. I had good experiences with Amtrak. It was especially easy when going from a town with an Amtrak stop directly to a city with an Amtrak stop. The Amtrak routes are limited.

One of my former girlfriends was groped on Acela business class. A guy sat next to her and pretended to fall asleep and his hand "slipped." She stopped taking Amtrak after that. I wouldn't stay that's the typical Acela experience though.

 

I drove my now wife's car from east to west coast about 20 years ago, before Satellite radio. Nearly a whole day driving across Texas with just seed adverts and religious radio to listen to.

 

When I'm using the adaptive cruise control I've settled on having my left hand resting at 7 o'clock and my left elbow on the door armrest, or my right hand at 5 o'clock, and my right elbow on the center armrest.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, our freeways are almost never free of traffic enough to really kick back and leave it to the car to cruise, unless you're content to cruise at about 70mph. Even driving on I-5 through the Central Valley, where there are long, straight stretches surrounded by farmland, the #1 (out of 2) lane doesn't get treated as an exclusively passing/fast lane and if one wants to go faster than someone camping out in that lane, you don't get to be passive for very long.

 

I concur with that. I do use DISTRONIC and Active Steering when just cruising, but I often have to take over unless I'm content with being stuck behind some left lane hog etc. I surprised myself on a road trip to San Luis Obispo last year. I ended up barely using DISTRONIC and Active Steering heading down on 101, because there were so many left lane hogs with the right lane being wide open or there was another car on the right lane and the car on the left lane was going at the same speed instead of passing. So I had to wait for the moment when finally a large enough gap opened up and I could quickly squirt around them. Basically every few miles I had to maneuver around at least one car where the driver was oblivious to their surroundings.

 

Saw this on the internet

 

I do hate that about driving in CA, left lane hogs. It can be quite remarkable that often the far right lane is car less for miles, while the passing lanes are back to back cars. If I'm on cruise control I use the auto lane change and pass on the right.

 

Here in Florida, I always get right over to the left lane and set the cruise control for 5mph under the speed limit (just to be safe). Everyone is so friendly, they wave and tell me I'm number one as they pass...............