Automatic Emergency Breaking Front/Rear

@Avoidin Deer...digging your screen name right about now.

If by "right now" you mean the rut, I'm hip. Been driving in this state since the early 70s, never hit a deer until I moved to this rural area. I hit 6 my first 5 years here...the last one took out my 1990 Volvo 740. I was less than 2,000 miles shy of hitting 200,000 and did not have full coverage due to its age. Off to the salvage yard...

The funny thing was I live on a large lot surrounded by farms and vacant lots, so I watch critters all the time through my patio door. That deer was the nicest buck I've seen since I moved here, just standing in the middle of the road on a foggy night. As the comedian Ron White used to say "Elusive little creatures." I think they're depressed.
 
After you've turned it off, what is its status when you restart?

The owner's manual claims that SBS automatically restarts. I'll try it this evening when I go out. I've never turned it off.

The first week I had the car it saved my butt because I was playing with the infotainment system. That stuff is a distraction. I've been more careful since. Driving for nearly 50 years and have never rear-ended anybody.

As I've said about leaving the Following Distance monitor on, I have no problem with these systems reminding me to back off a little. If I were still in DC traffic and "survival driving" conditions, it would be a different story. But here these systems are a net benefit.
 
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The owner's manual claims that SBS automatically restarts.

Right. That's what his complaint is about. There doesn't seem to have been a change between 18 and 19, at least, as you implied.

I've also never turned it off, don't have any problem with it, and find it potentially beneficial. But if I didn't, like Ronzuki, I'd be looking for options to modify or eliminate it. Or a different car.
 
Right. That's what his complaint is about. There doesn't seem to have been a change between 18 and 19, at least, as you implied.

I've also never turned it off, don't have any problem with it, and find it potentially beneficial. But if I didn't, like Ronzuki, I'd be looking for options to modify or eliminate it. Or a different car.

I thought when he said "Can't be completely disabled," he meant that you can only adjust the sensitivity but not turn it off. That's why I thought 2019 was different. NOW I see what he means. Yeh, mine turns back on when I restart the car...it's not "completely disabled."

If I thought it was gonna cause an accident, inconvenient or not, I'd just go to that screen and hit the button before pulling out of the driveway...or as I'm starting out on my drive. I get where that might suck if you're a 100% non-user.

Before I bought my car, I recall others making similar comments here...there were times they felt it put them at risk.
 
I'd just go to that screen and hit the button before pulling out of the driveway...or as I'm starting out on my drive. I get where that might suck if you're a 100% non-user.

If it was just a button, it's be ok, like auto hold. But it's buried in the menus on the info screen that is unresponsive for awhile.... but it's a first world problem, for sure.
It's just a button on my wife's Subaru, fwiw.
 
Have you considered disconnecting the physical lead to the radar? Don't know if it would work, would likely generate a constant error message, but might suit your purposes better.

Mother nature takes care of it and every other useless radar tech gadget on the car in winter. The big fat-n-flat Mazda emblem (radar sensor directly behind it) becomes packed w/ road slush nearly every storm and I get the annoying "it's disabled" errors on the HUD (like I care). The mirrors are frozen and I can't see what's coming up and how fast to merge (those damn heated mirrors again, which, I do care about). The useless amber blinky things in the side mirrors don't work because...wait for it...the car is covered in ice, so, that over-priced bit of tech doesn't function either. Flyin' blind as they say.
 
Systems like this are meant to prevent the close calls you seem to have been putting yourself in for the past 40+ years. It's great that you've never had any issues (up until now), but it sounds like you're pulling out from behind the buggy way too late (or coming up on it too fast). I drive pretty aggressively in my CX-9 sometimes, and I've had to maneuver from behind a semi truck while accelerating to get out of the way of an emergency vehicle behind me. The "Brake!" warning has come up in situations like that, but it hasn't braked for me, and I felt that I was cutting it VERY close.

Maybe you should adjust your driving style a little bit to accommodate the warning system. If not, you should find a different, older car (not a new one, because a new one will have AEB and will likely perform the same way that Mazda's system does). I don't think you'll have any chance of winning this in court if your argument is "I've been driving the way that I do for 40+ years, the system is flawed".

Woulda bet the farm a response such as this would have popped up...

You call it aggressive driving, I call it driving. The same way as I have my entire life before the term 'aggressive driving' was every third phrase in a discussion about driving or the in the media.

I do drive a 2010 AWD Suzuki most all of the fair weather months and garage it when the weather gets messy to preserve that vehicle BECAUSE it doesn't have all of the nanny-minder so-called "driver assist" technology. And it's a blast to drive, a driver's car. The Mazda has taller tires, great AWD, and higher ground clearance all better for winter. If the Mazda gets wrecked in the winter foulness, I could care less. Dime a dozen vehicle, replaceable. My Kizashi, I care about it and it's irreplaceable. If I could have bought a new one I very likely wouldn't even own this CX5. But unfortunately like the Mazda, it too would have all of this garbage in it by now. Don't have any 'driver assist' driving situations with it either.

Ex-Lawyers (politicians), not a fan of either, create and promote these fears, laws, and half-baked mandatory automotive requirements. Coincidentally, they'll all profit from their wonderful efforts by all of us "going to court" as you elude to. It's a great time in our history to be, or become, a lawyer! Proftable gig if you can get it.

My entire 52 mile daily round trip jaunt to work and back is one giant, 2-hour+, daily, close-call. Which, like clock-work, peaks on Thursdays and Fridays. You come drive around here, lobotomized as the technology wants you to, and you'll very quickly become the recipient of some serious road-rage, which, is on an exponential rise everywhere, btw. You ought to try driving in some non-U.S. locations, if you haven't, to get a real education on reactions to lobotomized driving. It's very enlightening, and, what driving here is quickly becoming. The root cause of these problems are roads not keeping up with population expansion and over-development. Under-sized roads, not enough of them, and the default political 'solutions' to traffic congestion by putting up more low-budget traffic lights, adding more of this costly dysfunctional garbage to vehicles, lowering speed limits, and eliminating passing zones. It also doesn't help, at all, that many are doing "things" while behind the wheel that have zero to do with driving their vehicle down the road. Therefore, no situational awareness. ALL of which slows everything so much as to cause further congestion, delays, crashes, and, elevating driver anger further.

Sorry friend, you have your opinion and I have mine. I'm not changing my driving style, that's been working perfectly fine for me, in order to appease technology. Nor are the other folks around me here whose vehicles may, or may not be, equipped w/ all of this nifty crap. The guy in the Jeep behind me could have cared less about my car braking on its own, for what it incorrectly perceived as a problem when no one in their right mind around here would have. Inciting a situation that should NEVER have happened. I was on the gas rounding a buggy. It was probably 3/4 in the vehicle travel lane when it should have been fully on the ample shoulder...an everyday occurrence, no big deal, happens all the time, many times in a single journey. Like rounding debris in the roadway. I can guarantee you that if the Jeep would have rear ended me in that particular instance (honestly don't know how he didn't), the driver would have come up and punched me square in the face first (at best), and then asked me WTF I was doing. Rightly so.

Then we'd all go to court....:)
 
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I hadn't hit the brake yet as I was going to steer around, maybe it happened prior to me moving the steering wheel, but my hands were on the wheel.

Doesn't care about steering input...and that's a big part of the problem w/ its implementation IMHO. I was already in process steering around the buggy when it slammed on the brakes.
 
Sorry friend, you have your opinion and I have mine. I'm not changing my driving style, that's been working perfectly fine for me, in order to appease technology. Nor are the other folks around me here whose vehicles may, or may not be, equipped w/ all of this nifty crap. The guy in the Jeep behind me could have cared less about my car braking on its own, for what it incorrectly perceived as a problem when no one in their right mind around here would have. Inciting a situation that should NEVER have happened. I was on the gas rounding a buggy. It was probably 3/4 in the vehicle travel lane when it should have been fully on the ample shoulder...an everyday occurrence, no big deal, happens all the time, many times in a single journey. Like rounding debris in the roadway. I can guarantee you that if the Jeep would have rear ended me in that particular instance (honestly don't know how he didn't), the driver would have come up and punched me square in the face first (at best), and then asked me WTF I was doing. Rightly so.

Then we'd all go to court....:)

Thanks for the background info, but the suggestion still makes sense to me. If you're not willing to adjust your driving style, you should ditch the CX-5 and find an older car that doesn't have AEB. I guess another option, tedious as it may be, is turning off SCBS/AEB every time you start the car.

Here's the thing, these systems are not at the level of learning how you drive and adapting the safety systems to fit your individual needs. They aren't mind readers. I'm not even sure how they would "learn" your particular driving style, it's not like it would be able to discern whether a "close call" was intentional or accidental. They have limitations, so again, you need to adjust your expectations and adapt, or get a car that doesn't have this safety tech. That's what it comes down to.

Regarding the bolded/red text, manufacturers can design their systems for large regions (North America, Colombia, Australia) based on the regulations in those regions. They do not design their systems to differentiate between driving style in Lancaster and driving style in Calgary, for example. These systems are designed to err on the side of safety. They've saved lives much more often than they caused accidental rear end collisions, I'm sure.

IMO it does what it is supposed to do, which is mitigate a potential collision based on the information available.
 
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Here's the thing, these systems are not at the level of learning how you drive and adapting the safety systems to fit your individual needs. They aren't mind readers. I'm not even sure how they would "learn" your particular driving style, it's not like it would be able to discern whether a "close call" was intentional or accidental. They have limitations, so again, you need to adjust your expectations and adapt, or get a car that doesn't have this safety tech. That's what it comes down to.

Regarding the bolded/red text, manufacturers can design their systems for large regions (North America, Colombia, Australia) based on the regulations in those regions. They do not design their systems to differentiate between driving style in Lancaster and driving style in Calgary, for example. These systems are designed to err on the side of safety. They've saved lives much more often than they caused accidental rear end collisions, I'm sure.

IMO it does what it is supposed to do, which is mitigate a potential collision based on the information available.

Here's a little more background for you...my profession is as an Industrial Automation Controls Systems engineer...my entire working career after...long before the automotive world even dreamed of single port TBI, one of the first "electronically controlled" primary vehicle functions. Machine and process control, electrical design and programming...it's what I do, and as I'd indicated previously, the automation in modern vehicles is deplorable. Thus far, most all of it does not account for the exceptions, the what-ifs of the real world that you wouldn't even dream of. It can't. Automation requires repeatable conditions in order to operate properly, consistently, and most important, predictably. Automation 101. These relatively low-budget systems (in the grand scheme of controls) such as those being designed into modern vehicles are also anything but capable of meeting the 101 criteria. There isn't enough money on the planet to properly automate a car to function reliably on a public course (American roads), which, also from an automation perspective, are anything but consistent or repeatable.

Mazda's footnote (aka "legal" disclaimers) from their 2018 CX-5 Sales Brochure (which I'm certain everyone here had seen, read, and truly understood before purchasing their new car w/ these features).
Footnote 16 is my issue:

15. Smart City Brake Support operates under certain low-speed conditions between about 2 and 18 mph. It is not a substitute for safe and attentive driving. Factors
including movement and shape of the object in front of the vehicle, weather and road conditions can all impact automatic stopping. Please see your Owner*s Manual for
further details.
16. Smart Brake Support operates under certain conditions above 10 mph. It is not a substitute for safe and attentive driving. Factors including movement and shape of the
object in front of the vehicle, weather and road conditions can all impact automatic brake control and collision warning.
Please see your Owner*s Manual for further details.


Please pay particular attention to the bold highlighted portions of the brochure's footnotes above...well no chit Sherlock...the SBS system can't handle the buggy, nor react to my in-progress rounding (steering input) of the object, period. Therefore in the real world instance of driving the vehicle where I live, on my course, it fails miserably from an automation perspective...in my professional not-so-humble opinion (and by Mazda's own clear admissions above). And before anyone goes off of the "Safe" portion, that's is another great little disclaimer. Who is to say the common way in which we round buggies here is, or isn't, safe? I'm certainly "attentive" while doing so lest I be plowing into the back of them regularly.

Consequently as the owner/operator of this particular, partially automated machine, I desire, and should be able, to completely disable this experimental marketing 'feature', completely at my discretion. I am actually appalled I have to pay for it in the first place. This feature wouldn't be in any machine controls I would design as it fails to meet basic automation criteria. It's truly impossible at any reasonable cost in an automotive application. Sure, throw enough time and money at the problem and it may be possible for this SBS concept to function reliably (that's all it is at the moment, a concept that we the consumers are acting as beta testers for) in a vehicle on a completely chaotic, unpredictable course (U.S. road systems). How do you feel about a $100,000 CX-5? It's all about the bucks.

The suggestion of opting for another vehicle is a ridiculous one as well, so please, refrain from suggesting that as an alternative. I want to purchase a new zero mile vehicle every so often. Maybe when I reitire I'l look for a pre-electronics vintage vehicle that doesn't require OBDII connections to figure out why it won't run. Seriously, what new vehicle of any comfort, or worth, today isn't packed full of this half-azzed automation? The field is pretty thin if nonexistent.

Certain automated vehicle systems are beneficial, have proven their worth, and are reliable w/o interfering with normal driving dynamics. Recently, the industry has gone too far, too fast and we're experiencing the consequences. How about that CD issue and rocker arms falling off as prime example. Yeah, fix that mechanical design defect w/ a software update...right. That's not a fix. It's an attempt at a reduction in occurrences to lessen their liability, bringing the legal consequences odds back into their financial favor.

A car is a machine, like any one of the hundreds of other machines and processes I've automated in my life. Mazda's coy little footnote admissions above are clear indication that these modern day automotive automation engineers have no business automating vehicles. Not yet at least. What automation qualifications, exactly, do these people have, really, to be automating a vehicle and putting us at risk? "We put the feature in the car...but hey, we told you can't rely on it so we're off the hook." So I ask, what good is it? If it doesn't cause me grief in my everyday driving, then fine, whatever. Take it or leave it. Still not happy about paying for it though. If an industrial automation designer or engineer knows of, or even thinks, a feature is not capable of 100%, normal operational reliability, then one designs in a permanent over-ride or bypass... if the feature is ever implemented in the first place. Likely not in my world because my customers aren't in the habit of paying for me to put 'features' into their controls that a) don't function reliably and b) cost them more money with no, or negative, ROI.

A button on the dashboard to permanently kill the SBS, much like the Lane Departure Warning system kill switch would be nice, a settings 'permanent disable' was required, and Mazda neglected to provide it in my CX-5.
 
Yeah...go figure...

Just so as to not misinform others...I can turn it off for a given driving session, but it is on by default every time you start the engine. I got confused as to what I thought folks were saying.
 
The suggestion of opting for another vehicle is a ridiculous one as well, so please, refrain from suggesting that as an alternative. I want to purchase a new zero mile vehicle every so often. Maybe when I retire I'l look for a pre-electronics vintage vehicle that doesn't require OBDII connections to figure out why it won't run. Seriously, what new vehicle of any comfort, or worth, today isn't packed full of this half-azzed automation? The field is pretty thin if nonexistent.

Why is opting for another vehicle a ridiculous suggestion? You're not happy with the automated emergency braking in the CX-5. The experience would more or less be the same with most cars that come with AEB. If you don't want to run into these issues, you'd buy a car that doesn't have AEB, which would, by default, be a slightly older vehicle.

Again, different people have different driving habits. For every person who complains that the AEB is too sensitive, there is one who will complain that it isn't sensitive enough.

I understand your gripes, but if I were in your shoes, I'd be looking at a different car. Agree to disagree I guess..
 
I thought this was not supposed to engage if the system saw human interaction with the brakes, accelerator or steering wheel. Or am I thinking of something else?

How could this be helpful? If I am driving, there has to be human interaction. If I do not see a stopped car, I probably have my foot on the accelerator.
 
ronauki Try covering the Mazda emblem with a similar size of tin/thin metal to block the radar unit. You may get a error message but it will not work, neither will radar cruise control. You may also have to mask off the camera behind the rear view mirror...
 
I*ve had the cruise control hard brake on me on the highway, and gotten the BRAKE! warning in town. It*s always the same situation, a car ahead of moves into the highway exit lane or right turn lane while slowing down. Usually when this happens, there is just a sliver of the car in front left in my lane and in another second it will be completely out of the way, but the problem is that the system can*t measure sideways movement, so it only sees a decreasing distance and can*t comprehend that it*s moving out of the lane, even though your human brain can clearly see that there is no danger. The in town warning is just an annoying momentary warning beep and visual indication, but the hard automatic braking at 70-75 mph is not fun at all.

I*m thinking of going back to the manual cruise control mode, but don*t know if the radar mode can be permanently disabled so I don*t have to swap to manual every time I engage cruise control.
 
Avoidin Deer...understood you perfectly.

GAXIBM...was planning on doing something like that when I had the nose off installing the fog lights. Pack the back of the emblem with plumbers putty or the like (wouldn't take much), however, I do find the radar assist cruise control to be useful. Besides that, I don't want the annoying and distracting warning alerts coming up on the dash all of the time. As I say, a simple button will do. However, there won't be any button added and in a few years, or sooner, you won't be able to disable it at all because the government will make it yet more mandatory required equipment. We've all paid to perform manufacturers beta testing right now.

Anywhooo... fumbling through a screen to disable anything that I permanently don't need/want every, single, bloody, time I want to get in the car and go somewhere is not my idea of fun or enjoyment. It's a poor implementation of operator controls. I'd personally rather simply drive the car, as always, w/o the crap. Leave all this non-sense out, lower the price of the car (significantly I might add) and let those that perceive they 'need' all of this half-baked, poorly thought-out & implemented, unreliable non-sense pay out the nose for it and the associated aggravation that comes along with it.

Get a different car...again, utterly ridiculous in this day an age...it'll be some other useless techno-BS that I don't desire then. Different brand/model, same story....

Rant over.
 

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