Johnhw2

I recently turned in a lease vehicle with blind spot monitoring. My remaining vehicles include an Infiniti QX56 with bsm and a 2010 ES350 without bsm. After driving the non bsm car less than a week I missed bsm so much I decided to replace it with one that had both bsm and awd. I ended up with a 2014 LS460 L AWD with bsm.

I realized my driving protocol had been altered by bsm, before the lease turn in my mother in law and wife drove the non bsm ES. When changing lanes I look in the mirrors then look at bsm before changing lanes. I'm older and a full head turn is not something that is as easy or quick a it once was. I also found the Infiniti bsm which I had for four and a half years never failed to tell me a car was in my blind spot, what it did was tell me a vehicle was there when it was a bridge or some other object making the bsm give me a false warning.

I looked at several luxury car brands with bsm available, including low mile used ones with this option. Infiniti had two additional safety technology I did not see in Lexus or Audi I most closely considered. But I had not changed my driving protocol for those and decided on the Lexus for realizability and other feature reasons.

Am I the only one who demanded a bsm and rear object warning system as a requirement in a new vehicle? The salesmen made me feel as though I was.

Nospinzone

My experience with many car salesmen is they will tell you whatever suits the cars they have on hand to sell. I once had a Lexus salesman tell me in 2010 that Lexus discontinued radar cruise control. Of course it was a complete lie, but then he didn't have any such car in stock.

robert1408

I am sort of a technophobe but the BSM and rear warning on my mom's '13 LS work so well! It doesn't nag and you can't miss the warnings. The occasional false warning is nothing compared to unintentionally changing lanes into someones space.

Devh

The blind spot monitor is one feature that should've been standard on this car. Actually it would've been nice if it was an industry standard for all cars. The only thing I fear with this technology is people becoming complacent and depending solely on this technology rather than being aware of their surroundings. There are bad drivers that will speed up knowing full well you're in the process of making a lane change and it might offset the BSM especially for older people whose reaction time might be slower.

roadfrog

So true. I find myself getting into other cars and then just blindly backing up until I realize I'm not driving in a car with sensors to beep and tell me to stop.

Devh

The way the industry is headed now is developing cars that drive themselves. This is not a far-fetched world exhibition of cars for the future that never comes to light but a real reality where the industry is headed and I don't like it one bit. If they can make a robot vacuum cleaner 15 years ago and a car that parks itself 10 years ago, imagine what they can make 10 years from now.

Johnhw2

I understand a production Infiniti Q50 with drive by wire is shown on YouTube driving itself with a driver in the passenger seat, I'm not sure I believe it and haven't tried to find it yet. I agree if they can almost do that now imagine what we will see in 10 more years

Devh

I particularly hate driving SUVs but after experiencing the BSM on one of them made the trip a lot better but I still did a double take and I think everyone should also. My bother-in-law who owns the SUV doesn't and I have seen where the technology works to his advantage but that is only because he also drives faster then everyone else.

dlbuckls10

BSM should be standard on all vehicles. BSM makes changing lanes safer and I wouldn't own another vehicle without it.

Nospinzone

Wow, very enlightening to read about BSM from you guys. I've seen commercials about it, but frankly never gave it a second thought. After reading your posts, I will definitely look into this option. The next car up should be a replacement for my wife's car. It appears she could really benefit from such a system.

All this valuable info and it doesn't even cost me a penny!

ClaytonW

I think that here in the USA, BSM is necessary. I spent most of my life in Europe and it was different. USA is now the only country in the world with flat driver's side mirrors. All other countries allow (and on 99% cars use) convex driver's side mirrors. Belive me - it's so much better... Of course, I would prefer convex mirror plus BSM, but just convex mirror without BSM would be O.K.

Johnhw2

Interesting, I had no idea. Wonder what the rational is for our flat mirrors? Cost? Hard to imagine a good reason to be honest

Devh

Each country has their own guidelines for safety implementation especially with mirrors and turn signals. In Japan they have very large rear view mirrors for better visibility but they look odd.
There doesn't seem to be any coordination to standardize safety across the board.

baam

I have never driven a car with a BSM system so I can't comment on how effective they are. I have however installed round convex "spotter" mirrors on every car, truck and motorcycle i've owned for the last 35+ years. The larger the mirror the better the result but even the smallest 1 1/2" stick-on mirrors provide complete blind spot coverage and they have saved my butt on more than one occasion. They don't really take up much room on your outside rear view mirrors (I usually put them as far out as possible) and they only a cost few bucks! I wouldn't drive a vehicle without them...

Johnhw2

One situation makes the bsm even more valuable. If some one two lanes over pulls inti the lane you are planning to over. To, the bsm will alert you real time when he starts to pull over. Where you may look in the mirror and if he isn't pulling over yet, you may miss him and pull over thinking its. Clear to do so. With the bsm you can see the light on with a glance, while in my mirror looking it takes me a second or two to focus and see what's there. Drive a car with bsm and see how you think it measures up vs the mirror of your choice