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Comment by buffington | Hacker News Reader

When my dad was teaching me how to drive, he told me that cruise control is only for when you have at least a hundred feet between you and the next car, and that you fully turn it off to pass other cars. I treat Autopilot the same way when I use it. I treat it as cruise control, if I use it at all.

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Problem is that, with no cars around for hundreds of feet, with dozens of seconds of reaction time, when you hit a low rise on the AZ Interstate, the Tesla Y will abruptly brake. This is with Autopilot OR with simple cruise control. Pretty stressful. Bonus impact on range prediction. So, I couldn't use either.

I know this is a controversial take, but I'll say it anyway: anyone who doesn't feel safe driving with cruise control is a dangerous driver. Cruise control is a tool. So long as you understand how it works, and that it doesn't paralyse your right leg, you really can use it in any driving context. It is an alternative input mechanism to the accelerator pedal, nothing more.

Agreed. Modern cars with adaptive cruise control and lane keep assist are a breeze to drive if you maintain awareness of your surroundings and practice confident defensive driving.

No, it is useless on VAG cars in Norway. You can’t drive at the speed limit at 110 and suddenly have the car slow down to 80 because of “reasons”. That increases the risk of being rear-ended for no reason, even though the car behind you is supposed to be attentive

Granted, you seem to be able to disable it in the menus, but if you rent/use car sharing services, this may not be obvious to you

Human drivers sometimes perform phantom braking, but we don't realise it because we are able to justify it to ourselves.

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