front emergency braking sensor

[RJVB]

So we discovered that my wife's new (since May, <8000km) Fabia Combi has an emergency braking ADAS with a sensor behind the front bumper grille. I took that flat black rectangle for a sort of cache where more complete models would have a forward parking radar or camera, but boy was I wrong.

 

The thing works. The ABS too, btw.

 

That is, it couldn't save itself from an impact with a pheasant (sic, not the bigger critter without the 'h' ;)). Pheasant 0, Fabia 0 too because the sensor was cleanly knocked loose, breaking the plastic bracing that holds it in place. Evidently it then started seeing all kinds of things just in front of its nose (road, bumper or radiator surface), triggering a very strong braking response. My wife had to complete the 10 or so remaining km's in hip-hopping in 2nd gear.

 

Repairs will be somewhere next week (thanks to an insurance company insisting we got towed to an official Renault dealership first, where of course they only have Renault software and tools).

 

This does beg the question what would have happened if this collision had taken place on a fast lane - or even when you get a harmless piece of plastic or paper thrown in front of that sensor on a highway.  I'm all for ADAS that detect when you're braking more urgently than usual and then increases the braking power, but a system that is so easy to derail (or trick) is potentially life-threatening. 

We're thus strongly considering to have it deactivated - if we can get positive confirmation that there are no legal repercussions to that if ever we get into a situation where the system should have triggered.

 

Anyone else here have a tail or opinion about this to share?

[AGFalco]

If it is not working due to accident damage then just turn it off.

 

This is in the manual:-

 

'Activating/deactivating
Read and observe and on page 122 first.
The function is automatically activated each time the ignition is switched on.
The system should only be disabled in exceptional cases » .
The activation or deactivation of the system can be done in one of two ways.
› In the menu item Assist systemsthe display of the instrument cluster
» page 45, MAXI DOT display.
› In Infotainment » Operating instructions for Infotainment, chapter Vehicle
settings (CAR button).
The following functions can be activated or deactivated separately in infotainment.
› Distance warning
› Advance warning
Upon deactivation of these functions remains disabled even after switching
off and switching on the ignition'

 

This is in the manual for the Fabia III.

 

If it is permanently disabled then the car insurance will go up.

 

HTH

 

Thanks AG Falco

 

Edited 13 September, 2018 by AGFalco
add that this is for a Fabia III

[RJVB]

Thanks, disabling it that way is much easier, but damn I should have known (or thought about) it. It looks like we could be using the car right now rather than having to wait for repairs.

 

The car manual is in the car, evidently (but I may have a pdf copy somewhere).

 

Something is not clear from the info you copied. It only mentions warnings, not the actual automatic braking. I wouldn't mind keeping the warning functions activated and only disable the braking. Does deactivating either or both of those distance and/or advance warnings also disable the emergency braking (because that system no longer receives information from the sensor)?

 

How would the insurance know you did this (and what is "permanently disabled" anyway if we're talking repairable items that are under software control )?

[Guest]

Many new cars have this feature and it will be a requirement in law to have it and for it to be actively turned on at all times in the future legislation. But for now you can turn it off. New cars will soon not be able to turn it off. It seems to work really well and it isn't easily confused in my experience. Just keep the sensor clean and understand how it works. It doesn't operate at all speeds though. There are limits within which it works and outside of those limits it swithes off automatically, only re-engaging when the car is back inside the safe zone. Can't just at the moment remember what the limits are. Just check the manual and it will tell you.

Edited 14 September, 2018 by Estate Man

[AGFalco]

The info I posted was from a PDF manual I have downloaded for my car.

The system is designed to detect metal objects only ( not pheasant/deer ).

 

From the Bolero infotainment system I have three tick options for the Front Assist.

This is found under Car - Settings - Driver assistance settings - Front assist

Active

Advanced Warning

Display distance warning.

 

If you untick the Active option the other two automatically go off as well.

So if the front assist automatic braking is off you will NOT get the warnings as well.

When you do this you get a yellow warning triangle light up in the instrument panel.

Also the front assist warning symbol lights up in the MFD in white.

 

 

This action would be recorded by the cars 'memory' department.

 

When researching the car I noted that a Fabia III with Front Assist is in a lower insurance group than one without it.

 

I downloaded both manuals ( the owners manual and the infotainment one ) and read them before buying the car.

I have found it useful to read them again since buying the car.

 

This is what is in the Infotainment manual:-

 

'■ Front Assist (ambient traffic monitor. sys.) - Set the assistant for distance
monitoring to the vehicles ahead
■ Active - Activate/deactivate the assistant
■ Advance warning (Version 1) - Activate/deactivate warning
■ Advance warning (Version 2) - Activating/deactivating and setting the distance
level at which a warning occurs
■ Early - Longer distance
■ Medium - Medium distance
■ Late - Short distance
■ Off - Deactivation of the warning
■ Display distance warning - Activate/deactivate distance warnings'

 

HTH

 

Thanks AG Falco

[RJVB]

I also had a look at the manual, but not in detail - mostly because we got the "Clever" version that came with a bunch of options the didn't (seem to) interest me in particular - and did NOT come with other options that would have been a lot more useful in practice. (Like one-push window closing as even our old C3 had, or linked driver+passenger rearview mirror adjustment.) I knew there would be no front parking radar, so why would I expect there'd be another sensor looking forward?

 

Anyway, on paper the FrontAssist feature is useful even if I hate the idea of something reducing my options in traffic. (Activating brakes at a red light or stop signs could seem like a good idea too, until you get rear-ended.) One can only hope that manufacturers will make the things more robust when they do become obligatory and non-deactivatable although I'm not holding my breath (it's not necessarily in their best interest after all).

 

One thing that surprises me here: FrontAssist is touted as making life safer for pedestrians and I'm pretty certain that must have helped making it obligatory. But how can that work if the sensor is sensitive only to metal? Not to mention, what kind of sensor would that be, something electro-magnetic that's probably going to have a very limited range? The sensor housing on our Fabia is a black box that's about 3" wide that seems big enough to hold a radar that's substantially more powerful (= has longer range) than the tiny ones for parking hidden in the rear bumper.

[Skomie6]

2 hours ago, RJVB said:

the tiny ones for parking hidden in the rear bumper.

Those are ultrasound, not radars.

[RJVB]

Ah... well, people call them radar here. Next time I'll correct them and point out the proper term is sonar

[AGFalco]

https://www.euroncap.com/en/ratings-rewards/euro-ncap-advanced-rewards/2013-skoda-front-assistant/

 

More detail/explanation on the 'Front Assist' radar system above.

 

 

Thanks AG Falco

 

[vc-10]

The Front Assist system in the pre-facelift Fabias doesn't detect pedestrians AFAIK. The updated system in the facelift car does however. 

 

Radar doesn't only detect metal. Humans give quite a strong return too. 

[RJVB]

Well, that, and the information that the system is functional up to 200kph does take me back to my original argument: it's potentially very dangerous.

 

 

I was not in the car when she had her incident, but from what she described it was as if there was a major electric failure, before the ABS kicked in, and she felt very lucky she wasn't yet driving at 70kph, and alone on the road.

 

The sensor is mounted behind an easily removable soft-plastic grille on a set of (what I'd call) plastic braces that are maybe 3mm in diameter. IOW, very easy to understand that it cannot resist an impact from even a light and soft object like a pheasant when the vehicle is moving at more than a slow city pace.

 

That's just not acceptable (even less so if the system becomes obligatory and non-optional).

 

[ettlz]

Is there any study to show these things actually have a statistically significant positive effect?

 

Are they effective at mitigating the sorts of accidents that result in fatality or significant, life-altering injury?

 

Or are they just more comforting Moron Abatement Devices that'll numb the driver and paper over underlying bad driving (but coincidentally manage to make cool-sounding marketing bumf in the process)?

Edited 17 September, 2018 by ettlz

[vc-10]

Yes. A 38% reduction in rear-end crashes compared to cars without, according to this 2015 study by EuroNCAP. This is for low-speed AEB, rather than the more wide speed range the VAG Front Assist system is active.

 

[xman]

LV discounts insurance if your car has AEB

[vc-10]

40 minutes ago, xman said:

LV discounts insurance if your car has AEB

 

I feel like this shows it the most! Insurance companies only care about their bottom line, if they're trying to encourage takeup of AEB then it must reduce crashes overall.

[RJVB]

I have some doubts about that article. The ncap article describes the study as "independent" but yet there are at least 4 co-authors working for at least 3 employers who probably had strong reasons to want positive results. I probably know the 1st author's supervisor though (former colleague), so all's not lost :)

 

Still. I only have access to the summary, and cannot help but notice that it talks about "a 38% overall reduction" compared to "a comparison sample of similar vehicles" and esp. that there "was no statistical evidence of any difference in effect between urban (≤60 km/h) and rural (>60 km/h) speed zones". That latter statement is interesting: it means they failed to show a difference in effect at lower and at higher speeds of a system that is only operative at the lower speeds. They (probably) underline the lack of statistical significance (of the lack of difference) here because they probably wouldn't have liked to find a significant difference; they omitted the stats terms from the main finding because they would have made the conclusion seem weaker.
Summaries are meant to "sell" an article, so it could well be that that 38% reduction isn't significant and represents the biggest difference they could find between a carefully chosen sample of data from non-equipped vehicles and the equipped vehicles (or even a well-chosen sample of those). Maybe they're honest and did identify a trend (= an effect that doesn't reach significance at 5% chance at least) but as it is the blurb does almost feel like a page out of this book ;)

 

The participation of an insurance company is tell-tale. They also care about damage repair costs, which probably (hopefully) represent their main expense. After all, with the current safety measures inside car cabins, what's the likelihood of serious injury during an urban rear-ender between 2 VLs? Probably less than with front-into-side and (even more so?) frontal accidents, but those are excluded from the study.

 

So,

Quote

I feel like this shows it the most! Insurance companies only care about their bottom line, if they're trying to encourage takeup of AEB then it must reduce crashes overall.

 

Or someone told them it has to do something and see, if you compare these samples it does quite a lot.

Our insurance policies are cheaper because we have supposedly clean cars (mine hasn't gone up after Dieselgate and I haven't had to prove I had the recall applied). Both policies are cheaper than the one of my wife's old Citroen C3 (2006 entry-level 1.4HDI model!) because of a much lower power-to-weight ratio. And that's not because this makes our current cars safer (on the contrary, probably), but because young squids are less likely to pick cars like ours to go destructive joy-riding.

 

Bottomline:  it's to be expected that systems like this do have benefits under certain conditions, but the fact that insurance companies lower policies when they are present is not proof. Not yet at least. We'll see in a few years ... when drivers have also grown used to having the things and thus have begun to take more risks.

[xman]

12 minutes ago, RJVB said:

 

 

Or someone told them it has to do something and see, if you compare these samples it does quite a lot.

Our insurance policies are cheaper because we have supposedly clean cars (mine hasn't gone up after Dieselgate and I haven't had to prove I had the recall applied). Both policies are cheaper than the one of my wife's old Citroen C3 (2006 entry-level 1.4HDI model!) because of a much lower power-to-weight ratio. And that's not because this makes our current cars safer (on the contrary, probably), but because young squids are less likely to pick cars like ours to go destructive joy-riding.

 

Bottomline:  it's to be expected that systems like this do have benefits under certain conditions, but the fact that insurance companies lower policies when they are present is not proof. Not yet at least. We'll see in a few years ... when drivers have also grown used to having the things and thus have begun to take more risks.

 

I think you have a very weird and totally wrong view of how insurance works. They couldn't care less how clean your car is.

 

Its about risk, the risk that they will pay out and how much.

 

If their database shows that AEB equipped cars on their books cost them less in payouts they are happy to reflect that in the premium.

 

LV also offer discounts if you have parking sensors. I wonder why? 

 

[RJVB]

Well pardon me if my insurance company charges me less because my car is supposedly clean. Actually, don't, it's not my fault they're French 8-)

 

Of course they maintain databases on which they determine their insurance rates. But that data has to come from somewhere, and if they had some showing a positive effect of the system it would have been mentioned in the article. Or the study wouldn't have had to be conducted (at least not with participation of an insurance company; you can bet they financed a part of the study).

[xman]

4 minutes ago, RJVB said:

Well pardon me if my insurance company charges me less because my car is supposedly clean. 

 

But they don't! They charge you less if your car (model,age), you (age, occupation), your insurance history, your driving history, where you live, what you use it for, when they run it through their database shows your risk of payout is less.

 

Sure performance of a car is a factor in terms of engine power, speed etc. but emissions is not remotely a factor. Would an insurance company have to pay out if you have an emissions related incident such as failing the mot?

 

The referenced article was published in 2013 just as AEB was starting to become widely adopted, in the 5 years since, there is obviously now enough claim data to attach a risk benefit. I have just renewed my insurance and this is the first time Ive been asked if I have AEB, parking sensors, dash camera.

 

AEB is being made mandatory equipment (as have seat belts, ABS etc) by EU directive in a year or two's time. The EU (like em or loathe) have performed the statistical analysis. The analysis is there in their directive proposals.

 

But if think otherwise, it doesn't bother me.

[RJVB]

25 minutes ago, xman said:

But they don't!

I guess you have proof then, on a copy of my insurance policy (tell me what company I'm with and I'll shut up). I agree it sounds strange, but that's exactly why I remember; it surprised me so much when they told me I didn't even think to ask why.

 

Quote

in the 5 years since, there is obviously now enough claim data to attach a risk benefit.

 

What's obvious is that there is no claim data showing the opposite. For the rest we just can't know. Maybe the policy benefit is there because of the 2013 data which was never contradicted. Or maybe owners of cars with the system file less rear-ending claims because they are more careful drivers to begin with.

 

 

I don't know how the UK insurance system works; here renewal is tacit and automatic, and I've yet to see a situation where they request additional data for an existing policy. That means they only know about stock equipment options, which depends on having a complete database of the myriad of finishes manufacturers provide (and helping owners put the correct model on their policy).

 

[AGFalco]

On 14/09/2018 at 20:51, AGFalco said:

When researching the car I noted that a Fabia III with Front Assist is in a lower insurance group than one without it.

 

I have two cars insured by the same company where the only difference between the two policies is the car.

The car that is newer, faster, more expensive is cheaper to insure but it has the Front Assist.

It also lives on the drive, the other older/slower one lives in the garage so this should make it cheaper.

Just noticed that according to Parkers.co.uk the Fabia III is in insurance group 8 and the other is in insurance group 4. 

 

 

Thanks AG Falco

[Guest]

17 hours ago, RJVB said:

 

Bottomline:  it's to be expected that systems like this do have benefits under certain conditions, but the fact that insurance companies lower policies when they are present is not proof. Not yet at least. We'll see in a few years ... when drivers have also grown used to having the things and thus have begun to take more risks.

 

Trust me, if an insurance company reduces premiums there is very good evidence that the sytems is a winner. They simply don't do stuff like that without VERY good reason. 

[Eccles]

All very interesting. Now this year I swapped over to LV from Aviva because the latter was beginning to take the mick. We have two cars on the same policy but LV shows the separate premiums. The premium on the now aging KIA Picanto was about £12 more than on the Fabia 3 which surprised me but now I know why. The Fab has front "radar" and rear parking assist which the Picanto does not (even though the Fab is a more powerful and expensive car it is still a better risk than the Picanto).

[mark_irl]

My two cents...

 

The car manual uses the word 'vehicle' constantly in the Front Assist section of the manual so I'm guessing it's not meant to detect smaller objects.

 

From the Warning section - "The system does not respond to crossing or oncoming objects", so even if it did pick up an animal, unless it's on the road ahead and picked up by the radar there's not much it can do.

 

Your wife should have deactivated it when it was malfunctioning rather than driving it and risking further damage or problems, if she was ok to drive after the collision a few mins checking that out would have saved the stress of driving the way she had to.

 

Not sure what your question is around what would have happened if it was a high-speed collision? If it was a car then system would work as intended, if it was a pheasant then it's not built to detect them.

 

Interesting question though around a bag landing on the sensor and covering it up, I wonder what would happen there. I'd hope that the fact it is not actively tracking the object and then being suddenly covered would mean it would throw a malfunction error similar to what it does for snow etc. The radar tracking is key to the software making a decision on what to do so not having something tracked as moving closer you'd think shouldn't be a problem...I'll ask in the dealer when I'm in there on Friday 

 

 

There's a link to the online manual here 

Edited 19 September, 2018 by mark_irl

[xman]

I would think the radar can only see radar reflective objects i.e. metal and only works above a certain speed. Paper or plastic bags wont reflect but might partly blind the radar, particularly wet material i.e. leaves, rain, snow.

 

If the car has a windscreen camera, I think that is also used on front assist and works in conjunction, presumably can help reduce false positives.

 

At slow speeds, front parking sensors, if fitted, are used.