The people at the Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP) – Australia and New Zealand’s independent voice on vehicle safety – aren’t stupid. They know that some driver-intervention ‘features’ on modern 4WDs are turning people off buying them, or encouraging drivers to cancel out as many of these ‘features’ as possible.

We test most new 4WDs and have found that many of them are irritating to drive, because of the constant barrage of chimes and ‘grabs’ at the steering wheel. We put up with these interventions as part of the testing experience until it gets to the point where we just can’t stand it any more. 

Many 4WDs have aggressive lane-keeping systems that send the vehicle down the road in a series of shallow-S-curves and we regularly cancel them, or reduce their force where we can.

It’s common practice these days for buyers to ask dealer staff to disable as many of these driver aids as possible. In some case, dealer technical staff comply, but in other cases, company policy prevents them.

Some interventions are stupidly dangerous. One of our family members has sold his Tesla Model 3 and swapped it for a BYD Seal EV, because the Tesla cruise control system kept braking from 110km/h to 80km/h without warning. Tesla had several goes at fixing the intervention, but failed.

Now, ANCAP has taken notice of what’s happening in the market, because there’s no point in ANCAP’s mandating of safety features that owners will simply disable.

ANCAP SAFETY has now begun a program of research tests is being undertaken to shine a light on the real-world driver experience and usability of lane support systems.

ANCAP has embarked on a new research project designed to intentionally capture the steering force, intervention timing and correction severity of Lane Keep Assist (LKA) and Emergency Lane Keeping (ELK) on vehicles already star rated.

This additional layer of examination looks beyond a vehicle’s ability to intervene and prevent unintentional side-swipe, head-on, or run-off-road crash as determined through ANCAP’s official star rating assessments. Instead, it focuses on the sophistication and integration quality of lane support systems (LSS) from a range of vehicle brands and models.

Aspects interrogated through this research program include:

• Vehicle path and position – is the autonomous intervention smooth and intuitive?
• Steering angle and velocity – is the intervention response exhibited through gradual change or are there rapid, sharp, unnecessary or jerky steering inputs?
• Steering torque – is the vehicle’s response difficult for the driver to override, leading to a feeling of loss of control?
• Lateral vehicle acceleration – is the sideways force experienced by the driver severe and unnatural?

This research follows feedback ANCAP has received from consumers concerned that the safety systems fitted to their new cars are providing an adverse driver experience.

A pilot group of vehicles have been put through their paces against a baseline ‘positive reference’ vehicle, with early insights showing clear room for improvement.

“This research project is a proactive step ANCAP has taken to help vehicle manufacturers improve the functionality, calibration and integration of their active safety systems,” said ANCAP Chief Executive Officer, Carla Hoorweg.

“Good system design and properly tuned systems are critical to consumer acceptance, and the aspects we’ve examined with this research are those that manufacturers should already be factoring into their systems.

“The pilot group of vehicle models we’ve assessed has been assembled from direct consumer feedback, where a specific list of models were identified as offering a fairly rudimentary response. 

“Unfortunately the behaviour of these vehicles is having consumers question the benefits of these systems and, in some cases, turn them off,” Ms Hoorweg said.

“We saw a great example of manufacturer response to this type of feedback last week with Mitsubishi rolling out an update to its Driver Monitoring System, to improve the driving experience of its Triton.”

The results of this pilot project will be shared with manufacturers and used to inform refinements to ANCAP’s upcoming 2026-2028 test protocols and criteria.

Additional vehicle models will be examined against the same research criteria over the course of the year, with full results to be released once the broad program of work is complete.