The assist to keep you in the lane that also auto turns on has been the only cause of 3 near crashes I've had, when renting cars. Never have I even had a slightly dangerous situation other than this bullshit turning the fucking wheel for me. Who the heck thinks that a machine knows best if it should turn the wheel than a human, with eyes, driving? I cannot understand how it ever helped anyone and it's much worse than just a beep, literally trying to steer against you.
This reminds me of how Boeing introduced an automatic nose-down feature in the 737 MAX, meant to compensate for its higher-mounted engines causing nose-up during takeoff. According to a video I saw, they didn't make pilots aware of this change from the older 737, nor train them in how to recognize it or turn it off, and its behavior in response to a bad angle of attack reading turned out to be deadly.
I actually knew about this one going in, since it's been a requirement for a bit longer. My Hyundai has two modes, one where it simply beeps if you cross the lines without the turn-signal and the dangerous one where it locks the steering wheel.
Only the slightly annoying beeping one seems to be mandatory, the extremely dangerous steering wheel locking one isn't. Otherwise I wouldn't have bought the car at all.
Steering wheel lock? Is that seriously a thing, or is that a strong exaggeration?
My car just gently applies a tiny bit of force on the steering wheel, to keep the car in the lane. It's very easy to override manually. In fact, it feels quite similar to moving out of pretty shallows ruts in te road, and could even be mistaken for it.
No, it will actively prevent you from turning the wheel if it means you will go outside your lane. It does have threshold if you struggle enough, in which case it will simply undo the lock and you get to jerk the wheel dangerously in that direction.
If you use the turn signal it won't lock the wheel, but if child suddenly runs into the road and you will try avoiding a collision, you'd better remember to use the turn signal first.
