This site may earn chapter commissions from the links on this folio. Terms of use.

Lane departure warning alerts you that your car is nearly to veer out of lane and warns you to get dorsum into lane. That's the bones idea, only there are several versions of the applied science available now, including ones that react and steer away from the lane border and fifty-fifty proactively proceed the car centered.  All forms of lane departure alert employ a low-toll camera mounted in the windshield most the rear view mirror that continuously watches the striped and solid lane markings of the road ahead. Information technology is part of the circle of prophylactic, the 3 most common and useful commuter assists: protecting y'all to the front (adaptive cruise control and forward collision warning), side (lane departure warning), and rear side (bullheaded spot detection).

Engineering science has driven the price of the 3 together downwards to less than $1,000 on many cars. Thinking virtually buying a machine with some form of lane departure warning? Hither's what you need to know.

The 3 flavors: warning, help, cocky-centering

There are now three major forms of lane departure warning:

Lane difference warning. This is the original. It is a warning merely. When you allow the machine drift virtually, onto, or over the lane marking, the car alerts you lot. As the driver, you have to take corrective action by steering the auto dorsum to the heart of the lane. It doesn't work if the road has no lane markings. Information technology may not work, or not as well, if your country waits until the lane markings are faded before repainting. Lane marker dots are sometimes harder to track, especially if their coloring has faded. If it'due south raining or snowing, the camera may have trouble, besides. By design, the lane deviation alert system doesn't warning y'all if you have your turn bespeak on, or (some cars) if you use the brakes.

Lane continue assist. This helps one time you let the car migrate likewise far. The car and so steers itself away from the lane marker. The driver has to re-center the car in the lane. Information technology's also called lane keeping system, lane assistance, side assist (Audi),  lane departure alert with steering aid (Toyota), or lane difference prevention (LDP is sometimes applied too to lane centering aid).

Lane centering assistance. This is the best and newest organisation, as long every bit you lot trust technology. It'south a fully proactive system. Lane centering aid always tries to proceed the car centered in the current lane. It works as long as the car senses you have your easily at least lightly on the steering wheel, and every bit long as curves aren't besides sharp. If you have lane centering assist and adaptive prowl control, you lot have the ancestry of what some people would call cocky-driving. At the very to the lowest degree, the combination is plenty to save yous from inattentiveness if yous speed along 5-10 seconds looking at a music playlist or (shame, shame) scanning a total-screen text. "Lane centering assist" is not as well-established as the other two terms.

Volvo lane-departure warning.

Lane departure alarm options

Pay attention to when the lane departure systems boot in and how they alert you lot. This is brand-or-pause stuff when it comes to driver satisfaction.

Minimum speed to engage. Lane departure warning kicks in between 30 mph and 40 mph or the crude metric equivalent, 50-65 kph. It isn't meant meant for low-speed, stop-and-become driving, partly because the camera couldn't see enough of the lane markings.

Audible warnings. Some cars sound alert beeps when your machine crosses a solid or dotted lane marking, then silences itself in one case it's away from the lane edge. The other alert course is …

Haptic feedback warnings. Other cars vibrate the steering wheel or seat absorber. The vibration is unlike any vibration the automobile makes when information technology's on, say crude or gravel-covered road, or when the anti-lock brakes appoint. Seat cushion feedback can vibrate the left or right side only, to direct your attention to the offending side of the motorcar.

Broadly speaking, Asian cars are more likely to apply audible warnings, European cars are more likely to use haptic feedback, and American cars employ some of each (but not both on the aforementioned car). Audible versus haptic isn't really an option. Y'all decide if one or the other is so important you'll carelessness i make for another.

BMW lane difference warning indicator.

Visual feedback. This is a secondary alert: Virtually every car shows a visual indicator that the car is drifting out of lane. Typically it'south a a pair of striped lane markings, sometimes with a car in the middle, typically xanthous or light-green lines when LDW is agile and all is well, but scarlet or flashing, on the offending side of the lane. In well-nigh cars, the instrument panel indicator isn't big enough to go the commuter's attending in a hurry, thus the demand for audible or haptic feedback. Some cars are now putting lane departure alarm icons in the head up display, where it's more probable to noticed.

Early on versus late warnings. Some cars let you choose whether the alert and/or lane correction happens before the car reaches the lane marker, on the lane marking, or once the automobile has gone over. The early alarm sounds safest, but it also means more alerts suggesting yous haven't been paying attention.

Adjustable audible alarm levels. Some cars let y'all adjust the loudness of the warning. But: Passengers who don't like aural warnings will be less annoyed with softer beeps, not unannoyed.

Force to overcome LKA/LCA. With lane continue assist and lane centering aid, the car steers back into lane. You can e'er overcome the automatic steering past turning the wheel harder than the auto does. Some people, non many, volition believe the forcefulness required is likewise high. Typically this is non an pick; it's simply how each car comes.

LDW automatically turned on at each startup? You can disable lane departure warning. Since it'south a safety detail that reduces accidents, some automakers (the majority) revert to LDW-on when you restart the machine. Some think when you turn it off.

Road divergence mitigation. Some LDW systems recognizes the edge of the highway equally different and more dangerous than just drifting into the next lane. They will tug the machine back onto the road if information technology's possible. Acura pioneered road departure mitigation.

LDW roadway rectangles

How information technology works: windshield camera tracks lane markings

The most mutual LDW system is a photographic camera mounted high up in the windshield, often as office of the rear view mirror mounting block. It captures a moving view of the road ahead as much every bit 150 anxiety alee. The digitized paradigm is parsed for straight or dashed lines — the lane markings. As the driver, yous're supposed to centre the machine between the ii lines. As the car deviates and approaches or reaches the lane marking, the driver gets a warning: a visual alert plus either an aural tone, a vibration in the steering wheel, or a vibration in the seat. If the plow betoken is on, the car assumes the driver is intentionally crossing over the lane, and there's no alert.

Then in that location'south lane go on assistance. When the machine reaches the lane mark, the car nudges itself abroad from the marker, sort of like bouncing off the walls in Pac-Human being. Sometimes the steering modify is effected by braking the opposite front bike and the car pivots back into the lane. The car tin also move you back by turning the steering wheel. In either case, the driver can hands overcome the car'south intentions past turning the cycle. It doesn't require superhuman efforts. If you lot read a story about a car that fought the commuter for control of the wheel, information technology'south either urban legend and untrue. The driver was and so startled he or she presumed the car'due south steering was more than powerful than information technology really was, or someone pretty clever has adult an amazing hack and we're in bigger trouble than nosotros idea. Simply that hasn't happened yet.

In that location are variations. For example, the automaker uses a rear-facing photographic camera to spotter the lane markings behind the car, such as Nissan. That seems counterintuitive and possibly slower in adapting to a curved road alee. Not so, say automakers, and besides, most ofttimes lane departure alarm is used on adequately straight roads.

Mazda uses an audible alarm but rather than beep, the car speakers play a synthesized rumble strip sound. It's convincingly lifelike.

Multipurpose photographic camera does more than watch lanes

Once at that place's a camera in the windshield facing forward, the camera can serve multiple uses:

  • Lane departure alarm (LDW).Or lane keep(ing) assist or lane centering assist.
  • Forward collision warning (FCW). The system tracks an object getting closer and the closing speed. Fifty-fifty with a unmarried (not stereo) camera, the algorithms compare speed confronting how chop-chop the outline of the car grows in the field of view. If the car shape ahead grows larger in a hurry, your car decides it's getting dangerously shut. A cerise alarm light and the word Brake! or Restriction Now! flash.
  • Pedestrian detection, city braking. The camera and processors detect pedestrians in your path at speeds up to about 20 mph and brakes (safely), ditto for cars ahead y'all failed to brake for. For city braking, some cars may utilise radar.
  • Windshield wiper control. If the prototype is detected as blurry, the algorithm suspects that may be rain striking the windshield. If your wipers are set to intermittent, information technology adjusts the delay for more than frequent swipes. (Nigh cars have split rain sensors, since intermittent wipers are on most cars, but not as notwithstanding lane departure alarm.)
  • Twin-photographic camera Subaru EyeSight

    Adaptive cruise control. Subaru Eyesight employs stereo cameras fix about a pes apart, on either side of the rear view mirror. They're accurate plenty to substitute for radar in an adaptive cruise control system that paces the car in front of yous. I constitute they don't have the extreme range of radar-based ACC, but if you're driving legal highway speeds, it'due south a non-issue.

  • Sign recognition. Hand the video feed to a pattern and optical character recognition algorithm and the auto can tell yous the posted speed limit, a temporary construction speed limit, or an accident or fog alert from an overhead sign. This capability is only on a handful of cars. Europe has a caput commencement on the United states of america considering its common signage made it easier to recognize a traffic sign from a billboard or a bulletin on the back of the truck ahead. Posted speed limited information is on many navigation systems now (not all automakers evidence it). If the car has telematics, temporary speed limits could also be sent to the car. And then, theoretically, you could set cruise control on highways to the current speed plus, say, seven mph.
  • Traffic light recognition. A color photographic camera in the windshield can tell when the calorie-free goes green, just in example you're not watching. This has potential in combination with a telematics system that sends traffic light information including when the light ahead is due to change phase (that is, green to yellow to red, or ruby to greenish). If you lot can't make the next lite earlier it goes cerise, the car may urge yous to slow down and save gas.

Lane departure alarm and blind-spot detection

Lane departure warning vs. blind spot detection

Nissan Pathfinder LDWThese ii features, lane departure warning and blind spot detection, are oft bundled in a package. Here's how they're unlike:

Lane difference warning uses a camera that looks ahead to tell if yous're globe-trotting out of lane. If your turn signal is off, information technology alerts yous.

Blind spot detection has sonar or radar sensors that await back and to the side. It alerts y'all to cars coming upward quickly into your blind spot. The warning on your outside mirror, or on the A-colonnade, is for a car in your blind spot. An icon showing two cars side-by-side lights up in the mirror. You get a haptic or audible alert merely if your turn signal is on, the opposite of what happens with a lane departure alert. Also, the lighted side mirror icon flashes.

Why LDW doesn't work 100% of the time

No automobile vision arrangement is perfect. Lane departure alarm works less capably in rain or snow, and it will shut downwardly, sending an alert to the commuter, when visibility is express. Obviously, information technology doesn't work when snow covers the road, or if there are no lane markings at all. On highway exits where the markings veer off, the system has to rely on the single lane marking that remains (and also scan the route ahead for where the correct-side marking picks up again). There volition be occasional imitation alerts when the car says you're drifting across a lane and yous're all the same properly centered. This is markedly amend than v years ago, though.

LDW works less well when lane markings are old, or when the lane markings are raised dots, rather than 20-foot painted stripes. A vigorous program to renew road surface markings before they fade would benefit automobile vision systems such as LDW, do good drivers with and so-and then eyesight, and benefit all drivers in rainy weather. This is one very minor reason why America'south infrastructure is no longer world class.

BMW_lane_markings

Should your next car have lane divergence warning?

In the scheme of optional driver-assistance aids, lane difference warning ranks near the top in importance with blind spot detection in improving safety. As the price comes down, it's possible the Department of Transportation might mandate LDW and BSD on cars within five years. If information technology chose one, it would be blind spot detection. But with the Trump administration looking for fewer, not more, rules, it may non come up to pass in the next four years.

Lane departure warning makes sense if you drive a lot of highway miles. Lane keep assist makes more than sense to proceed you from drifting across lanes, and lane centering assistance is better nevertheless.

What if LDW doesn't reduce accidents?

130712_mbs_0131 boulder supposition well-nigh lane departure warning is that LDW provides peace of mind, reduces accidents, and cuts down on fatalities and serious accidents. But is information technology true? In 2010, the Insurance Information for Highway Condom, a group supported by the insurance manufacture, said LDW could foreclose 7,500 fatal accidents. So the insurance industry's Highway Loss Information Institute in 2012 concluded that lane departure alarm systems may be linked to slightly increased accident rates. One theory was that driver assists made drivers overly confident and they collection beyond their abilities.

"Part of the disconnect … has to do with the fact that crashes in which vehicles drift off the road aren't common, even though they business relationship for a big proportion of fatal crashes," the IIHS said. "Lane divergence warning would be irrelevant to most 97 percent of police reported crashes."

Since and so, more than inquiry has shown that cars with driver assists generally have fewer accidents. More interesting was a recent IIHS survey of 184 drivers in Virginia and Maryland that showed two-thirds had lane divergence alarm disabled. The IIHS didn't say this, only one possibility may exist that drivers don't like loud, repeated warning beeps. It would be helpful to suspension out LDW use in cars with haptic (silent) versus audible alerts.

Recommendations: By all ways, go LDW

Lane departure warning systems all work pretty well. I've never driven a automobile with LDW that didn't discover road markings and provide some kind of warning, day or night, except in snowfall or heavy pelting. That's good. Here are my recommendations based on driving more than 100 cars with commuter assists including lane departure warning:

  • Look for cars with lane difference warning in a parcel with blind spot detection and adaptive cruise control. Example: The Honda Sensing Organisation has all three and adds merely $one,000 to the price of the vehicle. Toyota Safety Sense-P makes lane go on help ("lane departure alarm with steering help") and a pre-collision arrangement standard on many models.
  • If yous can get it, go for lane centering help, which is better than lane keep aid, which is better than lane departure warning.
  • You volition probably prefer haptic warnings over beeps. The reason is simple: The passengers won't hear when y'all get besides shut to the lane edge, which oft leads to snippy comments on your driving skills.

Having lane difference warning and adaptive cruise control (or at least forward collision alert) may save foolish drivers. Someone who tries to write a text while rolling along will probably be saved from his or her foolishness: Let the car drift out of lane, you're warned or the car automatically returns to its lane. Let the commuter ahead striking the brakes and your car brakes automatically, also. This is not how lane divergence warning and adaptive cruise are supposed to be used: saving us from ourselves.

For drivers who want to add lane departure warning electronics to their cars, devices exist, both as phone apps and dash-meridian devices that sometimes combine a traffic camera, navigation, FCW, and LDW. From the devices I've used, it's uncertain how well their accuracy compares with integrated devices that come up with the motorcar. Also, they warning you every time yous change lanes intentionally, since they have no way of knowing your plow signal is on.

Now read: ten well-nigh-perfect tech cars to buy in 2017

Check out our ExtremeTech Explains series for more in-depth coverage of today's hottest tech topics.