The modern road tester – the one living in the world as it is, rather than the one they prefer to run away and hide in – writes a great deal about so-called advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS).
At times over the past decade or so, it has felt like only our collective hatred of them has actually kept us going.
We recently conducted a group test of five very modern family plug-in hybrid SUVs of various sizes written by yours truly. They had plenty of differentiation points, but probably the most important one of all was how effective, unintrusive and obedient their ADAS were, such was the impact they had on drivability.
These systems have become such a defining part of the modern motoring experience – variously irritating, distracting, persistent, and very often wholly counterproductive and unhelpful – that few of us can have escaped their influence. A quick recap, then. Why do we have them at all? And where are they taking us?
The UK adopted the EU’s General Safety Regulation 2 (GSR2), which came into effect fully in July 2024. This meant that all new cars (those finding their way into showrooms via normal type approval, at least, which means almost all of them) must have an intelligent speed assistance system that not only detects the posted speed limit but also gives the driver “dedicated, appropriate and effective feedback” when the limit is exceeded, and it must default to on with every vehicle start.
Cars must also, among other things, have autonomous emergency braking, emergency lane keeping and driver attention warning systems that default to on in the same way and which “can only be switched off one at a time, by a sequence of actions”, rather than by the simple, short jab of a button.
That’s the law. But evidently it leaves enough room for ADAS that drive you spare; systems so unintrusive and easy to neuter that you hardly know they’re there; and just about everything in between.
For manufacturers that think customers feel reassured by every little bleeping, wiggling intervention; those that think good systems are ones you can leave on and not notice until you really need them (well, duh?); and those that make it pretty plain that they’re integrated under duress and are as easy to deactivate as can be got away with.
