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Fellow code jokey here. Our new car has self-driving features (they call it "driving assist" with the word "assist" meaning we're just helping you if we see you drift out of the lane, but don't depend on us and sue us). I played with it on quiet roads and disabled it the first day. If I veered some onto the center lane to avoid someone checking her mailbox, it tried to "help" me put it back in the center of the lane (too close to the pedestrian). Same with if I veered the other direction to avoid a large truck that veered into the center (for a sharp curve). Either the software is buggy or it's unreasonable to expect the design to account for so many variables.

I would imagine autopiloting a plane doesn't have to account for so much other random traffic.

You are correct - flying a plane is, maybe unintuitively, much easier. You don’t have anywhere near the use-cases to handle.

That said, many of these systems aren’t equal. There are no current standards to define how “well” an ADAS feature must perform. Lane Keep Assist capabilities will vary from manufacturer to manufacturer.

Consider false positives, the LAST thing you want to happen is for these systems to kick in when they shouldn’t. So, by definition, they will have a threshold where, in some instances, they won’t kick in when you’d want them to. They’re just “assist”.

As vehicles get more capabilities around understanding their environment, along with them being better integrated together, their effectiveness will only improve.

At this time, I agree, I wouldn’t get lazy with my driving and assume the Lane Keep Assist (or any other ADAS feature) will save me all the time. This is the mistake a number of Tesla drivers have made and have paid the price for doing so.

Also, the use-cases you cite are on point. They may not be designed to handle them, I’d turn them off for everything other than freeway use. One system may try to accommodate for things like pedestrians or oncoming traffic, another may only be looking at the road and try to dictate being in the middle of a lane. ...again, no standards.

I have a couple of Subaru Outback’s (love them) that have the lane assist. Normally I like it, but is sure can be picky about what it sees as the Middle of the lane, and the beeping gets annoying on very windy roads.

Also, when there’s snow I will always turn it off. That’s not because it can’t see the lane lines, as it will not try to “assist” if it cannot see the edges of the lane and there are are indicators that let you know if it can or not.

The problem I that snow on the road can make patterns that appear to be lane edges, and they can shift across the road randomly.

One time I had the car jerk the wheel to the side trying to keep in the “lane”, and that is obviously not optimal is snowy slippery roads. So it always get turned off when there’s snow on the road.

This is one of the reason I just don’t see self driving cars as inevitable. Just too many situations like that where a computer will make the wrong decision. I’m just not convinced that we can program a computer to recognize false or misleading information, that we humans know instinctively.

So perhaps I’ll be proven wrong, but I’m just not convinced that it can be done consistently and reliability for anything other than predicable roads and conditions.