Annoying safety assistant in the car: switch it off?

The speed limit assistant is particularly persistent: in combination with the traffic sign recognition, the ISA (for “Intelligent Speed ​​Assistance”) constantly compares the speed on the speedometer with the regulations. Constantly! If you are just one or two km/h too fast, it starts immediately: beeping, buzzing, ringing. Over and over again, even if other speed limits apply.

Or when a sign shows something completely different – because the traffic sign recognition has flaws and is far from error-free. One of the reasons is that a digital road map is used as a reference – and changes are apparently not always added there promptly and error-free. In general, it takes time: It can take up to 18 months for a new speed limit (or its abolition) to reach ISA via the official channels and the digital map. During this time, ISA continues to beep, even if nothing has happened.

The safety assistant is activated if you drive just 1 km/h faster than the speed limit.

Image: Matthias Brügge / Car Whiz

However, some manufacturers also offer to switch off ISA – at the touch of a button or with a fingertip in the on-board computer. Is this legal? “The legislator leaves this up to the manufacturers,” says Jochen Münzinger from Mazda Germany. The Japanese manufacturer’s new models are equipped with this option as standard: a button called “mute” on the console allows the warning tone to be deactivated.

Since July ISA has been mandatory in the European Union, and older Mazda models are gradually being equipped with it. Toyota Mirai allows you to deactivate the assistant. BMW You can stop the assistant from beeping by pressing the Set button for about one second. Mercedes a traffic sign must be tapped on the touchscreen. Kia and Hyundai For their part, they offer unassigned buttons on the multifunction steering wheel that can be used to silence ISA.

Unfortunately, the function cannot be switched off permanently: every time the ignition is turned off, i.e. the car is parked, the speed limit warning assistant has to be deactivated again. So we can only hope that the systems will improve and new speed limits will be communicated more quickly.

It gets even worse: Car Whiz colleague Rolf Klein reports on aggressive assistants in the Chinese GWM Wey – a surveillance state on wheels, so to speak. Anyone who appreciates strict reprimands and thinks dictatorship is a great form of government is being spoiled, says Klein. For the most trivial of reasons, the governess warns from off-screen: “Don’t be absent-minded. Please concentrate when driving.” The system even recommends taking a break immediately after starting.

Another common response is: “Please observe the current traffic regulations.” Others think to me, how convenient. The “driver monitoring system” (it really is called that) is divided into: “monitoring distraction,” “driver attention monitoring,” and “monitoring dangerous behavior.” Those who prefer to drive themselves often respond to the constant observation, which is accompanied by acoustic signals, with tantrums and screaming fits.

Even our great-grandparents laughed at Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times”, a satire on the pitfalls of future technology that degrades people to objects. But we have long since had “modern times”, and at the wheel: So-called assistants, which are actually supposed to ensure our safety, are mostly exhausting and prone to failure. The beeping and beeping is annoying, disempowering and even distracting. Ultimately, it leads to people becoming numb at the wheel – and in the worst case, the frequent false alarms cause them to lose faith in the usefulness of the technology. Why can’t assistants work like ABS or ESP? Then they would normally be invisible and would only come into action in the event of acute danger. Until the digital helpers are at this level, it is better to keep them switched off.