“Another one that’s coming in recently is called LKA, Lane Keep Assist.
It doe shave some other versions of that, but basically there’s cameras on the front corners of your car and they’re looking for white lines and this is the sort of technology that’s on autonomous vehicles to keep them in the right place.
If the camera detects that you’re approaching or crossing a white line and you haven’t indicated, that suggests that you’re wandering, you’re falling asleep or you’re just pulling out willy-nilly and you’re not paying attention.
So, in that case, it will alert you by a sound, a beep to go with all your other beeps in the car, or some of them vibrate your seat or vibrate your steering wheel to alert you.
Now, there are two scenarios here with lane keep assist. One is on a dual carriageway, which is where people often relate to this, that they’re moving from lane one to two to three or whatever, or in a one-way street or whatever. In that situation, traffic will tend to be going in the same direction and actually, whilst it is a serious big proper problem, the consequences are actually not as significant as if you’re on a rural road or out in the country.
If you cross the white line on a rural road, that white line is now a central line down the road. If you cross that, then you’re likely to go head on with a truck or something like that and you will not survive that.
So, lane keep assist has got great benefits on multi-lane situations, but wow, saving you from going under a truck on a country lane is very important as well. Similarly, keeping you away from going of the road keeps you out of the ditches and keeps you from crashing into trees.”
