Advanced cruise control?

[BertBert]

I was picked up today from T5 by a car service and noticed the driver had an intruiging technique...he managed his speed almost exclusively with the cruise control. He held the steering wheel like a games console, underneath with his thumbs on the cc buttons. So he knocked the cc off to reduce speed, hit set for steady state and hit the + button to accelerate. His thumbs were going like crazy on a vid game! All the time with his feet tucked back under his seat.

It scared the sh!t out of me and was so uncomfortable, I wanted to throw up. After a while I politely asked him to drive in the conventional fashion which he did - but was still a crap driver!

He was surprised that I might find it a problem! "noone else has complained"!

Anyone got any comparable advanced driving techniques?

Bert

[p1esk]

BertBert said:

I was picked up today from T5 by a car service and noticed the driver had an intruiging technique...he managed his speed almost exclusively with the cruise control. He held the steering wheel like a games console, underneath with his thumbs on the cc buttons. So he knocked the cc off to reduce speed, hit set for steady state and hit the + button to accelerate. His thumbs were going like crazy on a vid game! All the time with his feet tucked back under his seat.

It scared the sh!t out of me and was so uncomfortable, I wanted to throw up. After a while I politely asked him to drive in the conventional fashion which he did - but was still a crap driver!

He was surprised that I might find it a problem! "noone else has complained"!

Anyone got any comparable advanced driving techniques?

Bert

I don't think I would like to be driven like that, although it sounds as if he might have been quite good at losing speed on acceleration sense, which is a plus point for him - good observation and anticipation etc?

Going back to my car delivery days about three years ago, I had one journey with a colleague and we were talking about our respective use of cruise control. I said I found it of little interest in most traffic situations, but he said he used it a lot; and so he did. On the motorway in quite busy variable speed traffic, the cruise control was in use most of the time, but he was frequently interrupting it and fiddling with it. My feeling was that it would have been easier to just drive normally and leave the thing alone in those conditions.

Best wishes all,
Dave.

[PeteG]

I think there's potential use for it, switching it on and off as opposed to using the throttle... but if you're having to adjust the speed up and down, thats IMHO no different from switching between brake and throttle. Set it to 70, switch it on when it's clear, flick it off when you'd normally lift off the throttle...
I admit though, I've never used CC, so I'm not exactly qualified to comment.

[chris_w666]

Ive used it a few times and in quiet traffic it is a great thing to hold your speed steady and ease a bit of the concentration involved in driving long distances, especially at night.

In traffic it is nothing more than a toy to distract you IMO, switching on and off becomes tiresome and as most systems shut off when you change gear finding optimum power in the gears is hard unless you turn it off.

[Speed_Demon]

I can only see a use for it on motorways when the traffic is free flowing. Unless it's something like Mercedes Distronic Plus, which I would use in traffic as it would slow for me and accelerate back up again when the space opens up.

[waremark]

Speed_Demon said:

I can only see a use for it on motorways when the traffic is free flowing. Unless it's something like Mercedes Distronic Plus, which I would use in traffic as it would slow for me and accelerate back up again when the space opens up.

Why not in 30s 40s 50s and 60s when traffic is free flowing? CC is ideal on suburban multi-lane roads.

In my experience Distronic has as many disadvantages as advantages - I bought it because I adore toys, and it is technically brilliant, and a stunning party piece, but I won't buy it again. It responds later than you would want to some issues (eg vehicle moving into the space between you and the vehicle in front, where you would cancel a conventional cruise control as soon as you saw the vehicle ahead start to move, Distronic does not start to slow until the vehicle taking your safety space is fully in your lane, and then has to brake positively), and earlier than you would want to others (eg I am in lane 2 of a 3 lane road, if I want to maintain speed and overtake the vehicle in front I have to move out earlier than I would otherwise choose in order to avoid Distronic slowing me progressively to a following distance behind the vehicle I plan to overtake).

[dawson2k5]

I went on a trip from newcastle to london left at 11 o'clock at night, had cruise control set to 70 MPH for the ENTIRE motorway journey, I got down there and it felt like I hadn't even driven, great gadget if used in the correct situation.
Thanks,
Andrew

[nomisesor]

I find cruise control useful for long journeys on quiet motorways, not least to prevent cramp in the right leg. Also particularly good for SPECS monitored roadworks etc. It highlights the way that most people naturally slow down going up hills and speed up on the other side, which can be frustrating as you slowly overtake them on the way up and they overtake you on the way down. An intelligent one like those in Mercedes would avoid this problem, though you would gradually lose time as you were slowed on every hill and didn't make it up on the descent.
On our VW it would not be possible to drive smoothly by manipulating the cruise control buttons as the + button accelerates quite hard, so you get a surge if you use it as an accelerator.

[The Black Flash]

It occurs to me that, with fly-by-wire throttles, there's not actually any need to have a pedal anymore...it's just convention. It doesn't matter to the engine if you operate it with a pedal or an up/down button. I wonder how long before we have x-box stylee thumbsticks on the steering wheel ?

Personally I mourn the passing of cables and linkages.

[waremark]

For those of us who are equipped with 4 limbs, it seems quite sensible to share out the driving tasks between them.

Other control systems might be viable, but they would have to be very substantially better rather than merely viable to justify changing to them.

Personally, I am hopeless at driving games with a standard controller - as a teenage son said to me 'You need more subtlety of control in your thumbs Dad'. Not long afterwards as I was teaching him to use a clutch I enjoyed saying back: 'You need more subtlety of control in your feet!'

[The Black Flash]

Agree completely. What we have does work well, and has had getting on for a century of refinement. I'll just be interested to see if anything changes as the original constraints on control design (i.e. linkages) are removed.

[blackburnbmw]

I use CC a lot. This morning on the M6 and M55 in medium traffic it really encouraged forward planning and observation. On dual carriageways that are restricted to, say, 50mph I find CC helps me to avoid unnecessary speeding (i.e. getting carried away...) and is really useful as previously stated in SPECS controlled areas. I can honestly say that it is a feature that I look for when buying a car for myself and miss it when driving our other car that doesn't have it fitted.