► CAR explains why cars just love to nag
► Safety aids need to comply with new rules
► Some are reading between the regulation lines
Warning bongs have become a part of life for every motorist driving a new car. They’re compulsory, so you have to put up with them, right? Except you then switch to a different new car and the scolds are subtly different. What was worthy of a digital klaxon in one might go completely unnoticed in other. Hang on: if both cars are equipped in response to the same legislation, how come the warnings are different?
It is – you won’t be surprised to learn – complicated. The requirement for warnings is down to a combination of laws and threats. The big one is GSR2 (General Safety Regulation, part two) mandated by the European Union and applicable from 2022. It included requirements to warn of drowsiness and distraction as well as keeping the vehicle from straying out of its lane. Also on the list was advanced emergency braking, intelligent speed assist (ie the car theoretically knows what the speed limit is) and a reverse parking camera or sensors.
GSR2 came in into being in July 2022 for all freshly launched cars and July 2024 for all cars sold as new, so that in itself created a discrepancy. Jump into a car homologated for sale in June 2022 and it wouldn’t need the active safety requirements of a car that went through the same process a month later. Or it might have them but not apply the worst of the nagging until forced to two years down the line.
In the UK, having left the European Union, we aren’t signed up to GSR2. But in Northern Ireland we sort of are still in the EU, and anyway the manufacturers are grumpy enough about having to spend money to shift the steering wheel to our side without needing to reprogram the safety set-up as well.
‘The cost of a manufacturer having to maintain a UK-specific set of software from the rest of EU is just not worth it for them,’ Yousif Al-Ani, principle engineer at the UK’s insurance-funded vehicle testing centre, Thatcham Research, tells CAR.
The next wave of technology is the so-called ‘advanced driver distraction warning’ that all newly launched cars must include from July 2024. That requires the eye tracker that monitors how long your gaze leaves the road. Again, cars launched before that date have a two-year grace period.
This one doesn’t have to beep at you: the GSR2 rules state that the inattention warning could be haptic, for example via a vibration through the steering wheel. But a buzz or bong is cheaper so that’s the standard.
From 2026 Euro NCAP, the other main generator of safety requirements along with the EU, allocates a whole 25 points to monitoring driver drowsiness and inattention instead of just two. That means car makers will be strongly focused on keeping the scorers happy in their quest to hit five stars, although it must be said NCAP is looking to reward systems that actually work properly, for example without the infuriating lag that’s all too familiar.
As with all these safety technologies, driver monitoring is one where nuance is everything, and poor implementation from certain manufacturers is destroying any benefit. The idea is to stop drivers’ eyes straying below the dashboard in what’s referred to as the ‘phone use zone’. But what has baffled Thatcham in their investigations is that some manufacturers include the mirrors in the warning zone. ‘We don’t see that as a particularly clever implementation in terms of not annoying drivers,’ a clearly frustrated Al-Ani says.
One of the most enraging technologies is the intelligent speed assist (ISA) that scans road signs as well referencing a speed limit database to warn you when you’re exceeding the maximum. This has the potential to be useful, but too often misreads the signs. The rule is that the system must be accurate 90 per cent of the time. But that remaining 10 per cent isn’t spread geographically evenly.
The ISA is also allowed a percentage tolerance, meaning it can be set to chime for example at 32mph in a 30mph and still be legal. ‘That’s one example where you can do a small thing as a manufacturer that can actually get rid a lot of driver dissatisfaction,’ Al-Ani says.
The other flexibility comes in how you turn them off. EU legislation states that all systems must be on when the car is restarted and can’t be turned off with a single button press. However, some manufacturers have discovered that if they offer a programmable button, they can let the driver use it to perform a single push to turn off warning bongs without falling foul of the law. Examples include Renault and Dacia’s My Safety button and Mazda’s i-Activsense mute switch.
Those who draft the laws mandating safety technology obviously hope you mute the bongs by complying with their requests, rather than switching off. That has largely been the case with seatbelts, which have had a compulsory reminder warning since 2014.
And when the integration has been done seamlessly, few even notice, let along complain. Mandatory electronic stability control (ESC) came in at the same time at seatbelt warnings and has now matured to the point that very few us now feel the need to turn it off at the start of each journey.
Manufacturers have different philosophies about this whole field. Some are focused on the next phase, self-driving tech, which will make today’s status quo seem pretty low-tech. But another camp, led by Renault and Stellantis, is pushing back against the greater requirement for active safety, citing spiralling costs.
Renault-owned Dacia has led the way in pushing back against the NCAP pivot to active safety. ‘We don’t like to take bets on the passive safety, but we make choices on active safety,’ Dacia CEO Denis Le Vot told CAR, arguing that the brand is competing against far flimsier machines. ‘When you’re replacing secondhand cars that are six, seven years old with these new ones, that is a good job for the community.’