Winding Roads with Parked Cars = Collission Warning

[DB-Cooper]

I have to traverse a neighborhood road every single time I leave or come to my home. It's not terribly curvy, but it has 3 very natural and ordinary neighborhood turns. It's a 30mph speed limit road with a defined double yellow line. It's wide and parallel street parking is permitted on both sides. Regrettably, without fail, if there's a car parked at the end of a bend, no matter what the emergency collision avoidance alert (and red car icon on screen) occurs. It's not a subtle alert and it particularly causes alarm for passengers who aren't expecting it, and it causes pure annoyance from the driver.

My wife's car has similar collision avoidance, and it has only activated once in over a year under the same conditions, yet the Tesla does it daily or every time a car is parked after a bend. I've adjusted the settings to "Late" and that hasn't helped.

I've attached some pictures from Google to show the road. Circled in red would be where cars parked would cause a challenge. It's both directions. It's not just those two spots, but they're the worst. There's another bend on my street where if a car is parked in front of a particular home, it always occurs, but fortunately, my street rarely has cars parked in front of homes. Unfortunately for the street illustrated here, there happen to be people who park there cars there daily as they live in the homes, so it's pretty much always there.

I'd hate to shut off what is a very viable safety program, but given I drive on this road every single time, I'm running out of options. Has anyone overcome this with any settings tweaks?

 

[Petrlol]

Definitely happens. If the road turns and there are cars parked, it yells in a very annoying manner. Haven't found a way to keep the option on, but not have it do it on curvy streets.

 

[M109Rider]

Mine does that on side roads with cars from time to time as well.
It doesn’t bother me though.
I’m glad it’s there. May be a time it saves my bacon. (Again).

This will likely get smarter with future upgrades. Just like the rest of the software so far.
I’d say, turn it off until then, if it’s annoying you that much. Or put up with it, until future updates come in to play.

 

[5_+JqckQttqck]

Nope, it just happens at random even with non-winding roads. Only suggestion is to drive like grandma/grandpa and actually obey the speed limits in these areas. The radar + camera will register the vehicle, calculate the speed difference, and send off the alarm to the formula.

Better safe than sorry - taking the curve at higher speeds could send something flying and take your eyes off the road. The alarm will alert you to pay attention!

 

[Runebane]

I have this happen on curved on ramps, it thinks I'm going to plow into the car in the adjacent lane and squawks at me. Annoying, but keeps me on my toes at 6am when still waking up driving to work

 

[Ludalicious]

Mine also does this. The computer gets confused thinking the parked vehicle is stopped traffic and slows down to almost a stop until it realizes it's a parked vehicle. I'm happy to have my vehicle slow down than not and assess the situations prior to proceeding

 

[DB-Cooper]

First, I drive like grandma in my hood, under the speed limit in fact since we have so many cyclists, kids, walkers, etc. It’s definitely not due to speed or disobeying laws, I promise.

I can say having driven this same road with my wife’s Volvo for three years, we haven’t had the issue. I can also say the Volvo system has prevented legitimate collisions or near collisions reliably over the years, so their system still works.

I hope it gets tuned, but there are so many variables. This is another reason why NoA for city streets particularly for my commute is definitely in the realm of “pipe dream” right now and for the period I own this vehicle.

Glad I’m not alone on this one. I wish there was a way to lower the volume of the chime, does anyone know if that’s possible?

 

[ChuckieDude]

I got my M3 in November and this would occasionally happen in my neighborhood. After some update (not sure when but probably around January or so) it now happens to me almost every time if I drive my normal speed. If I drive slower then it does not happen.

I now just drive slowly as I should do this anyway since its a residential street with lots of kids!

 

[iaflyer]

Nope, it just happens at random even with non-winding roads. Only suggestion is to drive like grandma/grandpa and actually obey the speed limits in these areas. The radar + camera will register the vehicle, calculate the speed difference, and send off the alarm to the formula.

Better safe than sorry - taking the curve at higher speeds could send something flying and take your eyes off the road. The alarm will alert you to pay attention!

Mine does it regularly on curved roads, when I'm driving the speed limit (30), but thanks for the concern. In fact it did it this morning.

It has nothing to do with going fast - it's that the Model 3 can't figure out that the road curves and thinks you're gonna hit the car.

 

[DB-Cooper]

I got my M3 in November and this would occasionally happen in my neighborhood. After some update (not sure when but probably around January or so) it now happens to me almost every time if I drive my normal speed. If I drive slower then it does not happen.

I now just drive slowly as I should do this anyway since its a residential street with lots of kids!

Interestingly, I also believe it got worse with updates earlier this year. I'm not sure I can drive any slower, like you I'm on the lookout for kids, deer, cyclists, walkers, etc. Sometimes people honk at me because I drive so slow in my hood.

 

[5_+JqckQttqck]

Mine does it regularly on curved roads, when I'm driving the speed limit (30), but thanks for the concern. In fact it did it this morning.

It has nothing to do with going fast - it's that the Model 3 can't figure out that the road curves and thinks you're gonna hit the car.

It's is 30mi/h in residential zones or 20mi/h? Here in Ontario, the speed limit is 40kph (~25mi/h) or 30kph (~20mi/h) in school zones plus speed bumps to discourage non-local traffic. And yes, you're right, the alarm goes off if the car is far enough to the right and the parked car is there. The formula doesn't care about road curvature or speed as long as the collision possibility exists. Perhaps it'll update in the future

 

[RayK]

I kind of feel for you. My wife has a similar problem with a street near our house. It's much like what you show (curvy road, cars parked in the street) but in our case there are no lane markings on the road. She says that almost every time she drives my car through that neighborhood, the collision warning goes off. She tries to keep in the center of the road, as far away from the parked cars but it still triggers. I, on the other hand, have only experienced this alarm once out of the dozens of times I've been on that road and I wasn't paying attention to the cars (or lack thereof) that were parked. I think that we drive about the same speed (me maybe a little faster) and about the same position on the road. The only thing that may be different is the time of day we drive there. She tends to go through there in the daytime and I mainly have driven it at night, although there's been several times I've gone in the day (weekends mostly). The few times she has driven that road and I'm in the passenger seat, the alarm hasn't gone off. I keep telling her that she must be hearing things but what she describes, a fast beeping sound, seems to indicate the same problem you have. Here's the street for reference:

 

[DB-Cooper]

I kind of feel for you. My wife has a similar problem with a street near our house. It's much like what you show (curvy road, cars parked in the street) but in our case there are no lane markings on the road. She says that almost every time she drives my car through that neighborhood, the collision warning goes off. She tries to keep in the center of the road, as far away from the parked cars but it still triggers. I, on the other hand, have only experienced this alarm once out of the dozens of times I've been on that road and I wasn't paying attention to the cars (or lack thereof) that were parked. I think that we drive about the same speed (me maybe a little faster) and about the same position on the road. The only thing that may be different is the time of day we drive there. She tends to go through there in the daytime and I mainly have driven it at night, although there's been several times I've gone in the day (weekends mostly). The few times she has driven that road and I'm in the passenger seat, the alarm hasn't gone off. I keep telling her that she must be hearing things but what she describes, a fast beeping sound, seems to indicate the same problem you have. Here's the street for reference:

View attachment 393185

Thanks, I'll try to drive more in the center, I'm already hugging the yellow line, hate to go over it into a blind corner. I did highlight that there is a very visible double yellow line, I think the Tesla should be smart enough to track that and see the bend. In defense, on one of the common places, there's a break in the yellow line to accommodate a T-intersection, but for the other spots, it stays solid, and I'd think Tesla should be able to track the bend in the yellow and calculate the distance where a sudden car that is still >X-distance away from yellow line would be assumed to be a parked vehicle. That'd help in all but one of these blind corners (not the one with the intention yellow line break).

In somewhat different behavior from a previous posted, my car doesn't slow down or intervene, it's just a very sharp and sudden audible alert and then the red car icon on the screen, there's no actual intervention as I think the car sorts out that it's not a threat between the time of the alert and when it would intervene.

Finally, I'll attest the audible alert is quite loud and always makes your heart skip a beat, so not something you'd just hear. My wife wouldn't tolerate it, that's for sure.

 

[Kira]

The same thing happens to me on one particular road. Even though I'm expecting the alarm, it still startles me every time. The only thing that seems to prevent it is slowing down on that stretch (between 30-40 km/hr) and driving slightly out of my lane, the latter not always being possible if there's oncoming traffic.

 

[woodisgood]

Yep same thing for me in the neighborhood of my parents' house. It's annoying, and would definitely be more annoying if I had to deal with it multiple times a day. I think the turns and road markings and slight changes in elevation make it seem like you're headed right for a stationary object, hence the warning, similar to if you brake a smidge late behind stopped traffic.

 

[DB-Cooper]

Glad I'm not alone, but stuff like this makes me feel like we are way further away from anything beyond L2/L3 autonomous than I thought we were.

 

[eCharcoal]

I’m also having the exact same problem. The alert is quite loud and the first time it happened it woke up my sleeping daughter and she got scared and started crying. Now she’s used to it. My road has no center marking and speed limit 25mph. I could only avoid it if I drive below 20mph and more to the center. But could only do this when there’s no car behind me. I do agree that the sensors are getting more sensitive over recent updates though.

 

[StellarRat]

That happens to me too! There is one spot on a certain that always triggers it! I can avoid it by swinging extra wide around the SUV that triggers it. This road has no yellow line, but is a very wide 25 mph residential street. Good to know I'm not the only one.

I wonder if we should start reporting these as errors to Tesla? They probably are aware I would think.

 

[favo]

Same thing happens to me on my street leaving for work in the morning. Curvy, but nothing extreme, and somewhat uphill with no lane markings and 25 mph. I'll usually get one to three alerts. I generally report them as bugs, but sometimes I can't be bothered.

I have wondered if it's because the GPS seems to be off a little when I pull out of the garage. Possibly the parked cars are seen as in the road or even moving as the GPS gets a better position lock. On my way home, I never get the warnings, even though it's the same street, and there are usually more cars parked. One difference is that it's downhill instead of uphill. I suppose I could try going back up the street to see what happens.

 

[StellarRat]

One difference is that it's downhill instead of uphill. I suppose I could try going back up the street to see what happens.

This is my exact circumstance as well. It seems to mess up when going uphill.