Disabling a safety system?
 

We are looking at buying a new car eventually. Most of the cars we driven have pre crash, automatic brake, and blind spot monitors. While we absolutely want all of these featurs, the sales guy mentioned we can turn off such systems if we want.

So I wonder. Why would you want to turn off lets say automatic brake control or other such features? You can't turn off ABS or airbags on a regular basis. The logic of turning off some of these safety systems is at odds at the point of having them.

Traction control makes sense to turn off. What is automatic brake? The car brakes when it thinks you're about to crash? I guess that would be another one which I would turn off

Agreed. Those systems are not foolproof. If the computer slams on the brakes because it thinks you are about to hit something when, in fact, you are not, it can create an unnecessary hazard of someone rear-ending you. And we know what happens to some Ford products when they get rear-ended. ;)

I won't necessarily say there is no point at all, but I'm a firm believer in eyes, ears, and paying attention.

You know, I have had my auto brake saved me a few times, but I have also pondered turning it off once in a while. I am a pretty aggressive driver I would say, so any sort of tail gating leads the system to brake automatically when it isn't necessary. I now have the setting turned to "Late" Action but still this happens. I have had people brake check me on the freeway multiple times, and the system will brake so hard, and retract the seat belts that it is very unpleasant. If you are a more docile driver, it probably won't bother you. If you get annoyed by people driving 60 in the fast lane, then you'll know what I am talking about after you buy the car.

I've turned AEB off in a rental car before (GMC Yukon if memory serves), after the system nearly caused an accident. I was already slowing to a stop at a reasonable pace, and all of a sudden the system panicked and threw out the anchor. In addition to terrifying everyone in the car, we very nearly got rear-ended. Luckily the lane next to us was empty, so the other driver swerved around and gave me the finger.

On the X1 loaner I had last week, I disabled the lane keep system, because it shakes the steering wheel when you're crossing a dashed white line even when the turn signal is on, unless three full flashes have elapsed before you start to cross over.

Most of these systems work pretty well in my wife's Q7, but the park distance sensors regularly false-alarm during the winter thanks to snow/salt/ice. Overall the features work well enough that I haven't disabled any. The AEB has only falsed once so far. I might have to disable lane keep assist as we get into road construction season, that remains to be seen.

Bottom line if these systems work and work well, I'll leave them on. If not, they get disabled. But this is nothing new. On my 2000 E46 3-series, the very first thing I did after starting the car was disable the ESC. It tried to kill me enough times that I wasn't taking any chances. On my E90, it's improved enough that I leave it fully on unless the roads are very slippery, when it gets put into "dynamic mode". Or fully disabled if I happen upon an empty snow-covered parking lot. :D

My ram has parksense with accident avoidance braking. I shut off the accident avoidance to the rear sensors because backing into my driveway causes me to come to a screeching halt. The sensors read the incline at the entrance to my (not steep at all) driveway as an obstacle, locking the brakes and beeping like crazy. The Ram's have an option where you can leave the beeps on, but turn off the braking. That's where mine is set.

Not all the time but I have turned traction control off for spirited driving

This mirrors my experience. I've had cases where autobraking probably avoided an accident, for example driving in the HOV lane and someone stuck in the next lane pulls in to the HOV lane right ahead of you, but the same system has also activated when it had no need to and could easily have caused an accident.

So -- the reason why you might deactivate these systems is because they work up to a point but aren't alway quite ready for prime time.

agree in general use, but there may be a situation where the beeps and computer control is annoying or defeating something you're trying to do, like a very narrow space for example. but i don't turn off anything on the car.