Everything is more expensive in NY. I lived in Manhattan for a while. As for tires, here in the snow belt they’re really a must on passenger cars. Four snow tires, not just two. Road commissions have to plow state trunkline highways first; my road is plowed almost as an afterthought. There have been times when the snow was so deep I couldn’t see as it came flying over the hood. Just have to keep the pedal to the metal and hope nothing’s coming in the opposite direction. An exciting way to start the day.
@TomL
Didn’t say the car was smarter than me, but that it has reacted at times faster. Like in that sun glare situation - the car’s radar spotted the sudden slowdown in the car in front of me sooner than I spotted the brake lights indicating that the idiot was trying to stop in the middle of a highway lane. (And did.) It started to brake more heavily and, in the midst of my saying what the hell are you doing, the angle of the glare from the setting sun cut enough for me to better see what was happening. I set it to max distance so there was plenty of time, but it can’t be denied the car reacted faster than me.
That is not the only time the radar is ahead of me as a driver. The current stuff will tell you when there is a car crossing behind you backing out of a parking space before you can see it.
If there is really snow cover I don’t know why anyone would have the lane sensing turned on to start with. It has to see the lane markers and with a couple to six inches of snow on top of the road, like I was driving thru four days ago, they aren’t reliably visible.
The current crop of passenger cars have features that make it safer than the cars I started driving over 40 years ago, can’t deny that. I appreciate the apparent concern that I might fall asleep and let the car take over, but I pull over when I get tired. My back seats are selected for the ability to take a nap if I need.
Hmm - well, that was a sun glare and the car saw it sooner than me. Otherwise I would not have been asking it what the heck it was doing when it laid on the brakes.
I just did a cursory check on each manufacturer’s web site for info on their pre-collision systems. There may be a crucial diff between Subaru Eyesight and the Toyota Safety Sense that affects this situation. Eyesight uses “its set of dual color cameras” mounted just below the rear view mirror. 2018 model year, this may have been changing from a couple of years ago.
Toyota Safety Sense (model year 2018) is based on “Using an integrated camera and laser or radar” to see ahead". Radar or laser is less likely to be impacted by glare than cameras alone.
One of the reasons I waited until 2018 to buy a car with this stuff on board was to let the technology mature a bit. When I went looking three model years ago, I would do research and find out that things were still uneven. One manufacturer had the best lane sensing system, another the best collision avoidance and so on. I waited on purpose to let it all even out.