WannabeOwner
Well-Known Member
The issue for me (AP1) is that I have no idea of the circumstances where AP might misbehave.
I can predict, with very high levels of confidence, what unexpected / likely / predictable things other road users will do, based on years of experience and, before that, years of staring out of the windscreen as a kid.
But I have absolutely no inclining as to when AP will do something unexpected, so I work on the basis that that might well be in the very next second. But its a long wait, and many miles covered, between any such incidences, and some of them I can predict (curved road, or even a straight road, over the brow of a hill).
One such example is the hesitation, and occasionally a stab of the brakes, when AP1 perceives a gap is too narrow (Truck in the nearside lane), but to me there is absolutely no difference to a previous gap that AP deemed was fine. The issue with this is for any vehicle close behind me, 'coz they certainly aren't expecting me to jump on the brakes as to them the road ahead is clear; so I need to be ready with both steering and accelerator.
I'm fairly regularly tootling between East Anglia and Bristol, its 4 or 5 hours driving, and AP is hugely less tiring than it used to be BAP (Before AP ...), even with one hand on the wheel the whole time, and a foot at the ready too - I wish there was a right-foot-rest, even the poxy Golf had that to accompany its absolutely useless TACC - so IMHO AP is a benefit, even in this non-autonomous incarnation, but I would very strongly encourage folk not to get blase about it.
My view is that so long as either the car, or me, avoids someone else's accident that's all to the good, and the car's reactions are going to be much better than mine in a real emergency, also better at detecting some things that happen at the periphery, whereas experience gives me the upper hand in predicting what other traffic idiots are likely to do. Another benefit, for me, of AP is that I now adopt a generous follow distance, so there is more time to react and less aggressive braking and thus less chance of the car behind me having to do something dramatic. Does seem like people behind think I'm not getting a move on though ... and yet they don't seem to be able to keep up once the traffic clears
