Driver’s reticence towards entrusting their safety to a bunch of questionably reliable sensors is understandable. It is part of what keeps those who are developing the self-braking tech on their toes, beavering away night after night to make it reliable.

Work is paying off, though, as you’ll see in the Consumer Reports video posted below, though the results still can’t be called consistent; Volvo’s sold more than one million cars equipped with a similar setup.

Yes, the Lexus LS you see in the footage does stop in due time at under 25 mph time repeatedly without hitting the dummy, but once the speed is increased, so too is the chance that the system may only mitigate and not completely avoid the unwanted contact.

I had the chance to try out one such setup in the BMW X5 that we tested. It intervened twice while in traffic, though the intervention was kind-of uncertain – a quick but strong (automatic) dab of the brakes accompanied by an audible warning. Neither of the situations called for it and the system seemed a bit paranoid; one involved a bicyclist while the other a car that had cut me off.

By Andrei Nedelea

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