Safety in City Driving?

[obi11]

As I consider buying an M3. my main motivation is safety in routine neighborhood driving. Its not clear to me how much AP or FSD is related. What I want is a car that will prevent me from making mistakes. I want it to take preventative action if I miss seeing something, miss estimate a speed or distance, forget to check in some direction, etc.

Almost all my driving is city driving. I doubt FSD is applicable, so I expect to be doing the driving. I want it to brake in time in stop and go traffic if there is a short stop in front of me during a second of distraction. I want it stop if I'm backing up and an obstacle enters my path, I want it to prevent or warn me from making a left turn because the opposing traffic is coming too fast for the separation distance, etc.

Will Tesla do any better than the variety of safety features on less intelligent cars?

 

[coleAK]

At this point, no. But possibly in the future with over the air updates

 

[Rottenapplr]

Lyft and Uber are calling.

 

[Kilotango74]

As I consider buying an M3. my main motivation is safety in routine neighborhood driving. Its not clear to me how much AP or FSD is related. What I want is a car that will prevent me from making mistakes. I want it to take preventative action if I miss seeing something, miss estimate a speed or distance, forget to check in some direction, etc.

Almost all my driving is city driving. I doubt FSD is applicable, so I expect to be doing the driving. I want it to brake in time in stop and go traffic if there is a short stop in front of me during a second of distraction. I want it stop if I'm backing up and an obstacle enters my path, I want it to prevent or warn me from making a left turn because the opposing traffic is coming too fast for the separation distance, etc.

Will Tesla do any better than the variety of safety features on less intelligent cars?

Even the best systems in the world can only do so much is you suck at driving.....

 

[bwilson4web]

Even the best systems in the world can only do so much is you suck at driving.....

He drives better than your posting.

Bob Wilson

 

[ewoodrick]

It has a number of features that may help you, but there are no guarantees that it will help you.

 

[Nocturnal]

Tesla has far more features than most cars in regards to not hitting other objects/people. The sensors around the car are very handy. The stationary object warning works very well. Backup camera is one of the best. Blind spot monitoring has pros and cons vs others. Lane departure warnings etc. will still help. That's just for now. Once FSD starts getting going there will definitely be more "background" applications for FSD where it will warn you or take over if you are doing something dumb.

 

[Az_Rael]

Tesla doesn't currently have cross traffic alert when backing like some other cars. Also AEB doesnt work below 7mph.

Frankly, for a city driving use case where you are looking for all those features, I would wait and see what FSD actually provides. Right now several other manufacturers have equivalent or better (blind spot and cross traffic for example) safety systems for city driving.

 

[Kilotango74]

He drives better than your posting.

Bob Wilson

Damn.....your right. Should have said "if" not is.

Even the best systems in the world can only do so much if you suck at driving.....

There, thanks for the critique.

 

[WilliamG]

I was surprised there's no cross-traffic alert. How is a car supposed to self drive itself if it can't even detect cars to the left and right when it reverses out of a space? Even my 4 year-old Golf R had cross-traffic alert...

 

[Daniel in SD]

I was surprised there's no cross-traffic alert. How is a car supposed to self drive itself if it can't even detect cars to the left and right when it reverses out of a space? Even my 4 year-old Golf R had cross-traffic alert...

Easy, the car will back in to parking spaces.

 

[Eno Deb]

I was surprised there's no cross-traffic alert. How is a car supposed to self drive itself if it can't even detect cars to the left and right when it reverses out of a space? Even my 4 year-old Golf R had cross-traffic alert...

That is indeed a good question. To a certain degree the backup camera could help, since it has a fisheye lens and covers a wide angle. But it's not clear if that will be enough. Will be interesting to see if the car stops for cross traffic when backing out of a parking spot with "enhanced summon". I'm sure some brave souls will try it.

 

[animorph]

While it could do better detecting cross traffic when backing, it'll probably do it the same way humans do. Backup slowly and hope traffic stops if it needs to.

 

[ammulder]

While it could do better detecting cross traffic when backing, it'll probably do it the same way humans do. Backup slowly and hope traffic stops if it needs to.

And listen for a honking horn that indicates it’s messed up?

 

[Eno Deb]

While it could do better detecting cross traffic when backing, it'll probably do it the same way humans do. Backup slowly and hope traffic stops if it needs to.

What I do in really tricky situations (like being parked between two giant trucks) is to get out of the car and use Summon to pull out the car when the coast is clear. I don't imagine Autopilot will be able to step out of the car anytime soon.

 

[totteraptor]

As I consider buying an M3. my main motivation is safety in routine neighborhood driving. Its not clear to me how much AP or FSD is related. What I want is a car that will prevent me from making mistakes. I want it to take preventative action if I miss seeing something, miss estimate a speed or distance, forget to check in some direction, etc.

Almost all my driving is city driving. I doubt FSD is applicable, so I expect to be doing the driving. I want it to brake in time in stop and go traffic if there is a short stop in front of me during a second of distraction. I want it stop if I'm backing up and an obstacle enters my path, I want it to prevent or warn me from making a left turn because the opposing traffic is coming too fast for the separation distance, etc.

Will Tesla do any better than the variety of safety features on less intelligent cars?

I have a M3 with all the latest bells and whistles and I am sorry to say that what you are looking for is not available in this car. It will do stop and go traffic very well and keep you on the lane you are driving in. But it will not prevent you from backing into things, hitting suddenly appearing objects or braking from cross coming trafffic. E.g. At numerous occations with road construction I have experienced that it would have driven into the trafffic cones if I had not taken over steering.

 

[Knightshade]

I have a M3 with all the latest bells and whistles and I am sorry to say that what you are looking for is not available in this car. It will do stop and go traffic very well and keep you on the lane you are driving in. But it will not prevent you from backing into things, hitting suddenly appearing objects or braking from cross coming trafffic. E.g. At numerous occations with road construction I have experienced that it would have driven into the trafffic cones if I had not taken over steering.

You're replying to a post from almost a year ago- he's probably made his decision by now... (and probably in the negative given he only made 1 more post after this one and hasn't logged in since July 2019)