[redrav52]

I have a 2021 RAV4 Premium and was wondering if anyone has had real life experience with Toyota Pre-Collision System. I live in a deer filled neighborhood and have hit 3 of them over the past 10 years. I know there is no way to test the system and have watched lots of YouTube Videos on Safety Sense. I have decided to leave the setting in the default settings as Toyota has a lot of smart engineers.

Has anyone had a situation where the Pre Collision system activated? What happens?

Thank you

 

[JFox562]

I have had it beep and flash a message on the dash. The situation that caused mine was so fast I'm going to assume the message on the dash said Brake like the manual indicates.

Driving manual transmissions for so long, I don't go to the brake pedal as much as most would so when a car is slowing to make a right-hand turn, I usually let off the gas and let the car slow on its own. This kind of scenario is not liked by the system it would seem. Since I don't crowd people, I have enough time to not hit someone making a right-hand turn pretty well but since the system identifies an object getting close and you haven't touched the brake pedal, it intervenes thinking that you do not see the object. I have never felt the car brake for me but it could be but not enough for me to notice. What I don't like is the beeping and the flash of a message in red on the dash board. This distracts the driver from what's important; not hitting the object. It would seem to work well and the videos I've seen where the car comes to a complete stop before hitting an object is pretty compelling. However, I'm not planning on testing to those extremes and the scenario I indicated above is by no means testing the system but it did intervene.

 

[ddox]

I’ve had several situations exactly as JFox described where the person in front of me is really taking their time with a turn, and I, risking my safety for the sake of MPGs, am trying to time it so I don’t have to brake much and just coast through. The car will beep at you pretty early.

I had one event where it actually applied the brakes though. We’ve all been there: coming up on a fresh green light, expecting the car already stopped there to start moving, only he doesn’t. I absentmindedly came in a little too hot and had to slam the brakes, but Safety Sense judged it to be a bit more dire and slammed the brakes harder. The music turned down/off, the car beeped a lot, and we jerked to a stop.

The frustrating part was it disabled the accelerator after the event for several seconds. After the car in front of me got his shit together I could still only basically coast through the intersection; after a few seconds of mashing the gas pedal I could finally accelerate again. It was already embarrassing, considering there were 3 adults in the car with me, but then Toyota put me in timeout. “No no no, you can accelerate again when you learn to behave.”

Sidebar: I’m not completely reckless, I always make sure I have an out for stuff like that (room in another lane to swerve if needed). Still not worth the <1% gas I’m saving with risky driving. I’m working on that lol

 

[RAVettel]

It came on for me when someone brake checked me. I actually appreciated it because we were on a two-lane rural road and it took my brain a second to realize that they weren't just braking, they were braking hard for no apparent reason other than to prove a point. It didn't brake for me, but the warning came up and a big loud beeping sound took over the stereo.

FYI wasn't tailgating, I flashed them because they were blocking the overtaking lane on a road where overtaking opportunities are pretty few and far between and I don't think they realized I was trying to get through. They really overreacted to that and braked hard to prove a point or something.

 

[Keith_A]

Last year I was driving through rural Utah. It was near sunset and I was driving about 50 mph on a 2 lane highway. Suddenly a deer appeared right in front of me. I had to suddenly swerve to avoid hitting it. "Safety Sense" did nothing.....

 

[meeder]

It has saved me once when a car in front suddenly braked extremely hard. The car slammed on the brakes extremely hard.

Normally there is a warning first and if you don't react quickly enough it applies the brakes.

There are however quite a lot of conditions that have to be met before it does something. It only applies the brakes until you are very close to the other vehicle. If there is time to swerve out of harms way you are probably not close enough for the system to react.

 

[Keith_A]

It has saved me once when a car in front suddenly braked extremely hard. The car slammed on the brakes extremely hard.

Normally there is a warning first and if you don't react quickly enough it applies the brakes.

There are however quite a lot of conditions that have to be met before it does something. It only applies the brakes until you are very close to the other vehicle. If there is time to swerve out of harms way you are probably not close enough for the system to react.

I don't believe that at all.... The deer that I nearly hit would have been a hood ornament if I did not take immediate action. The deer was only a couple feet away when I passed it.....

 

[meeder]

What speed were you traveling?
I thought that pedestrian and cyclist detection only works at lower speeds.

A deer that suddenly steps in front would be the same as a cyclist or pedestrian and if you are traveling at highway speeds the system won't save you that's not what they advertise the system for AFAIK.

The system warned me multiple times in city environments but I was already reaction to the situation.

In my opinion the system works pretty good but it is not something to have blind faith in. There is no failsafe system on the market today.

 

[lacsap]

Last year I was driving through rural Utah. It was near sunset and I was driving about 50 mph on a 2 lane highway. Suddenly a deer appeared right in front of me. I had to suddenly swerve to avoid hitting it. "Safety Sense" did nothing.....

I am going to think aloud here - does safety sense focus on direction of travel more than perpendicular traveling objects at higher speeds?

Lots of technologies in RAV4 - pretty impressed overall.

 

[JFox562]

I am going to think aloud here - does safety sense focus on direction of travel more than perpendicular traveling objects at higher speeds?

Lots of technologies in RAV4 - pretty impressed overall.

I do know that there are pressure sensors in the door panels to assist in the reason for side airbag deployment. I believe that's what you mean by perpendicular. No braking though as far as I know since there is no camera or radar pointing in those directions.

 

[New2018rav4owner]

Last year I was driving through rural Utah. It was near sunset and I was driving about 50 mph on a 2 lane highway. Suddenly a deer appeared right in front of me. I had to suddenly swerve to avoid hitting it. "Safety Sense" did nothing.....

I have a few events when safety sense gave me a notice. I don't expect to notice a deer. I think after a decade we will automatic robot pilot to compete with human in driving capabilities. For now is just a helper in highway. I prefer to use in stop and go traffic.

 

[toyodaornot]

AFAIK system only designed to brake on cars, byciclists or pedestrians. It may not have recognition for animals. I have had occasions where it gave me warnings for cars only and even saved me from rear-ending in traffic once. I felt like just this one encounter alone that saved my butt made it so worthwhile to own the car with such safety tech. Hence the reason I have immediately upgraded my wifes car. Once the tech improves even further I will certainly be upgrading again so long term ownership for me is out of question.

 

[cash70]

That’s a negative for a deer. I’ve seen the red light flash maybe a couple of times for cars. But not when a deer jumped right in front of us while doing 55. No chance at all. I slammed on the breaks as I hit it.

Car was drivable after the hit. But the repair was 13k total.

 

[cawrav4pa]

I had mine happen twice now, I got too close to a car waiting to turn left, and it beeped and I evidently got too close cause when I went to go around them and accelerate the pedal did nothing.

My cautionary warning is that if this happens and then you need to move quickly, the car just sits for a bit, I turned my sensitivity down and it hasn't happened since.

Maybe it's telling me that I am driving too agressive!

 

[katekebo]

The system is designed to recognize humans (of different size), cars (of different shape and size), bicycles and motorcycles. The computer analyzes the objects that the camera sees and uses artificial intelligence to assign them a "value" - "this looks 80% human, that looks 92% car, etc." If an object looks less than certain % of what the computer is programmed to recognize it ignores it. It also looks for road edges and painted lanes to analyze if the object is in your path or the road will bypass it. The whole process of "recognizing" an object and deciding what to do is very fast, takes less than 200 ms.

It's a very "intelligent" system. For example, it won't slam the brakes if it sees somebody standing right in front of the car on the edge of a curve, because it is smart enough to figure out that you will turn before you hit the human. But it will react to a person that is off to one side, but walking towards the road in front of you. And it won't brake for trees along the edge of the road (because they don't look like a car or a human).

The system is NOT designed to recognize deer, dogs, cats, chicken, alligators, wild hogs, rabbits, etc. The complexity and number of different shapes that would have to be analyzed and identified as "danger" vs. "safe" is beyond what computers can do fast enough (yet). You could attempt to program the system to recognize a wide range of objects, but this would extend the reaction time, and in a system like that quick reaction time is essential.

One final consideration. Automatic braking system is designed to safe lives, not bumpers. It will attempt to brake and stop the car, but depending on your speed, road conditions, visibility, etc. it may not be enough to prevent contact. However, in most cases it will slow down the car enough to save the pedestrian's or your life. If you hit the car in front of you, it's your fault, not the autobraking system. You are still responsible for maintaining safe distance, speed and paying attention. If the autobrake doesn't avoid a collision 100% and you end up with a hefty body shop bill, be grateful to Toyota engineers for saving your a$$, instead of complaining about the autobrake system not being smart enough to make up for your driving mistakes.

 

[wishk]

I had it beep the warning the other day. I was simply going around a large pothole in the road but there was a car parked to the side a few car lengths ahead. I was aiming straight at that car for perhaps half a second so the warning was not entirely out of place.

 

[JFox562]

The system is designed to recognize humans (of different size), cars (of different shape and size), bicycles and motorcycles. The computer analyzes the objects that the camera sees and uses artificial intelligence to assign them a "value" - "this looks 80% human, that looks 92% car, etc." If an object looks less than certain % of what the computer is programmed to recognize it ignores it. It also looks for road edges and painted lanes to analyze if the object is in your path or the road will bypass it. The whole process of "recognizing" an object and deciding what to do is very fast, takes less than 200 ms.

It's a very "intelligent" system. For example, it won't slam the brakes if it sees somebody standing right in front of the car on the edge of a curve, because it is smart enough to figure out that you will turn before you hit the human. But it will react to a person that is off to one side, but walking towards the road in front of you. And it won't brake for trees along the edge of the road (because they don't look like a car or a human).

The system is NOT designed to recognize deer, dogs, cats, chicken, alligators, wild hogs, rabbits, etc. The complexity and number of different shapes that would have to be analyzed and identified as "danger" vs. "safe" is beyond what computers can do fast enough (yet). You could attempt to program the system to recognize a wide range of objects, but this would extend the reaction time, and in a system like that quick reaction time is essential.

One final consideration. Automatic braking system is designed to safe lives, not bumpers. It will attempt to brake and stop the car, but depending on your speed, road conditions, visibility, etc. it may not be enough to prevent contact. However, in most cases it will slow down the car enough to save the pedestrian's or your life. If you hit the car in front of you, it's your fault, not the autobraking system. You are still responsible for maintaining safe distance, speed and paying attention. If the autobrake doesn't avoid a collision 100% and you end up with a hefty body shop bill, be grateful to Toyota engineers for saving your a$$, instead of complaining about the autobrake system not being smart enough to make up for your driving mistakes.

So with all that said, is there a speed threshold the system turns off or reduces its concerns?

In other words, if you're traveling 65mph on the highway and a person is walking across the highway, will the car still react as if you were going 25mph or slower?

 

[katekebo]

So with all that said, is there a speed threshold the system turns off or reduces its concerns?

In other words, if you're traveling 65mph on the highway and a person is walking across the highway, will the car still react as if you were going 25mph or slower?

Toyota system is active at all speeds. It will try its best to prevent a serious accident no matter how fast you go, but the end result of course depends on how fast you were going. The faster you go, the earlier it will react. In real-life tests, the system has been effective in successfully preventing contact with vehicles and pedestrians at speeds up to 35 mph, and make the accident "survivable" (for the car occupants) up to 85 mph. I don't have the numbers handy, but my memory tells me that a test in which the vehicle was going 85 mph toward an obstacle, it reduced the impact speed to ~35 mph - not nice, and certainly total loss of the car, but survivable for the occupants (maybe with a few broken ribs from the seatbelts). Probably not survivable for a pedestrian. Vehicle-to-vehicle protection is intended (and effective) to work at all speeds (or up to 85 mph), in case of pedestrians it's really intended to work effectively at city speeds (35-40 mph and below).

Keep in mind that the system isn't 100% successful in terms of detecting a potential danger. In practice the system will take correct action in about 80-90% of situations. There will be occasions in which it will miss - due to poor lighting, reflection for a bright surface, poor visibility, or "confusion" (several potential "targets" in sight, unable to decide which one to react to).

Engineers could design the system to be more "aggressive" and react faster to potential dangers, but this would result in more false activations and read-end accidents from vehicles not equipped with autobrake. As with any engineered solution you need to strike a balance. The real solution is fully autonomous, interconnected cars that continuously "talk" to and share information with each other.

 

[Gerry M]

I have a 2021 RAV4 Premium and was wondering if anyone has had real life experience with Toyota Pre-Collision System. I live in a deer filled neighborhood and have hit 3 of them over the past 10 years. I know there is no way to test the system and have watched lots of YouTube Videos on Safety Sense. I have decided to leave the setting in the default settings as Toyota has a lot of smart engineers.

Has anyone had a situation where the Pre Collision system activated? What happens?

Thank you

I have ! It saved me from rear ending another car the first week I had it. The light turned green and the car in front of me started to go (and so did I) and for whatever reason he braked hard. Admittedly I was distracted but my car came to a screeching stop saving me from ruining the front end of a brand new car. Love it!

 

[FrankH]

I braked for a car that didn’t see me, but the collision avoidance kicked in and assisted and brought me to a stop about four inches from the other car’s fender. I am convinced that the collision avoidance prevented damage.
I bought our 2020 Xse hybrid for the safety features. I am 71 and the technology goes far to make up for my reduced reaction time.