Well, I just hit 10,000 miles on my new 2023 Honda Civic Sport equipped with Honda Sensing ADAS technology that I bought in January (yes, I drive a lot). I went from the Stone Age to the Space Age when I traded in my 2009 Honda Civic with 215,000 miles, and to be honest, it’s been awesome.
First off, I learned how to turn off the lane departure warning. It was annoying, especially when merging onto highways when you’re not necessarily using an indicator yet crossing over painted lines. When I told this to an ADAS expert friend, he cracked, “So you’ll be the guy I’ll steer clear from on the highway.” What? Just because I disabled lane departure warning? I don’t think that makes my vehicle any less safe.
Another new thing I had not seen before: the word BRAKE in all capital letters in an orange rectangle flashing on and off on the dash when someone merged in front of me very close at high speed. Clearly the car sensed a pending front collision (rear collision for the yahoo who cut me off) and was telling me to brake; the vehicle was probably seconds away from braking itself. But the dingleberry speedster sped off so fast, the imminent danger cleared when enough distance between my front bumper and his rear bumper was gained.
Also for the first time, I heard a rapid succession of beeps as I was wheeling out of my company’s parking lot one day after the whistle blew. Apparently, my front bumper got too close to a fellow employee’s rear bumper as I was pulling out — the sensors! I appreciated the warning.
And finally, the “maintenance due soon” light came on. I had checked the oil life around 6,000 miles because I was a little worried, as in the past I had gotten an oil change every 5,000 miles. I hit a button on the steering wheel and scrolled through a bunch of menu items to check and was surprised to see it was still 50%! So now that the car has eclipsed 10,000 miles with 15% oil life left, it informed me that it was time for its first checkup. Hopefully I didn’t get too focused on oil life and neglect other maintenance items, but it’s a new car! And a Honda no less! I figured it could take piling on many miles before its first visit to the service center.
All in all, I’ve gotten used to this ADAS thing. It’s like the old saying about air conditioning: once you have it, you can never not have it. Now if I can just figure out how to disable the feature that flashes the speed limit of whatever street I’m on …
