Last weekend while on a road trip while I was in traffic my PCS activated even though there was no obstacle in front of me.

I was using radar cruise while in slow traffic behind an 18 wheeler and was maybe 25-30 feet behind him going about 5 MPH. Cruise and BSM were on and the 18 wheeler was still moving forward in front of me when this happened.

What I think may have caused the problem was that another car in the left lane decided to get in the lane I was in but right behind me and basically cut the guy off behind me to get there. I think the CTA may have detected that he was moving towards my car from left to right and triggered the PCS. I was lucky that he was alert and was able to stop or else he would have run into me. It startled me as there was really no reason for the PCS to activate.

Has this happened to anyone else? And I wonder how his would have been handled if the guy hit me? He would have stated that I slammed on the brakes for no reason but I did not. The car did.

 

hah! Welcome to the club.

Search for my posts on this issue. I have been driving with PCS system off now for 2 years. The system with it's false positive obstacle detection caused numerous problems and an accident. After it caused an accident, I turned it off. My car was not hit, but 2 cars behind me ran into each other, because the PCS in my car decided to slam on brakes at 30mph....... for no particular reason.

 

In Texas, if the guy hits you, he'll get ticketed for "failure to maintain assured clear distance" even if you slammed on the brakes for no good reason. It doesn't help your car value or hassle dealing with the issue, but the other driver is considered at-fault.

 

I searched all your posts and can't find anything on this. Can you provide the link?

 

That's kind of what I thought but it wouldn't be easy explaining that to the cops. That same reasoning applies in Louisiana. For now when I am in close traffic I will disable PCS. At least until I have a better understanding of what occured.

 

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/gs-...use-of-it.html

That's when it first happened to me.....

 

I hope it never does happen to you or anybody! Unfortunately, knowing that it does and will, it's fairly easy to explain. "Officer, a car cut in front of me and my vehicle's automatic emergency braking engaged. The car behind was obviously following too closely to react and avoid a collision."

And if you want to make light of an unfortunate situation, you could add "and unfortunately my Toyota sudden acceleration did not follow the AEB, so I did not escape getting rear-ended."

 

Thanks as this is good info. I need to have a better understanding of how all this works so that I can eliminate this from happening again.

Spoogenet, I was not chagning lanes. A car in the left lane behind me cut the guy off in the right lane behind me. I was maintaining enough distance between me and the 18 wheeler in front of me using the DRCC. If the rear sensors or CTA radar sensors are part of PCS detection I was not aware of that as that is only thing that could have caused this to happen in my case. Unless the DAM activated which I was also not aware of.

 

Yowza, yeah I misread your post!