Ford has had that since Blue Cruise 2.0, or thereabouts. It really shocked me how often it catches my attention being diverted. Things like talking to my passengers, adjusting the climate controls, or eating- I'm not even talking about 'advanced distractions' like my phone.

It also seemed really accurate. I never remember it beeping at me when I was actually paying attention.

It's totally plausible to me that this kind of nudge will save a lot of lives.

My experience with my Volvo EX30 has been the complete opposite. Although the false positives have gone down with software updates, it's still wrong so often I turn it off every time it bothers me. Due to some other regulation, this setting is unfortunately not remembered. That means every time I get in the car, I have to spend time going trough the settings to disable it, often while already driving. Seems like a great idea.

The biggest false positives involve singing or talking being mis-interpreted for yawning. Which then triggers a notification and a noise telling me "maybe it's time for a beak", which makes me look at the screen in the center console, which then triggers a second notification telling me to "please look at the road".

Great system over all. 10/10 no notes.

> It's totally plausible to me that this kind of nudge will save a lot of lives.

I think an in-car breathalyzer which gates the ignition would also save a lot of lives.

Most people agree that kind of manufactured paternalism is an overreach and would be against its introduction. Other people say the same about the diverted driving detector, and I imagine others said the same about the seatbelt sensor.

The intersection of personal freedom and personal safety is an interesting topic, I don't think there's a right answer and it's ultimately pretty subjective.

Owned a Ford Mustang Mach-e with BkueCruise for about 3 years now. No obvious false alarms about missing attention. Interestingly, it doesn't get confused by my sunglasses and still catches me looking aside for too long. I think it is a rather good implementation overall.

> It's totally plausible to me that this kind of nudge will save a lot of lives.

It’s also totally plausible that insurance companies will use this data to try and find every single tiny, irrelevant detail to not pay you. Sorry, you blinked before crashing into this other car, we won’t pay for that.

Law enforcement could also use that data to create a nice profile of yourself and how “distracted” you are while driving, and maybe suspend your license forever, why not? And wait till you find how unreliable these sensors are.

Just another surveillance tool in disguise, this is what the EU does best.

It gives me false positives when I'm holding the wheel at the top and my wrist is blocking line of sight from the camera. On the other hand, sunglasses have never tripped it all.

> It also seemed really accurate. I never remember it beeping at me when I was actually paying attention.

This is the exact opposite of my experience! The one time I tried BlueCruise, it went into "panic mode" every time I turned my head to check my blindspots.

Thank you! I often feel like I’m in the minority on this site, it is nice to hear someone else articulate my feelings. Driving is a privilege not a right. But since America decided to decimate public transit in the early 20th century (and stick with it) we’re stuck with cars. So I’m in favor of anything that makes it safer. Hopefully this crosses the pond.

I don't doubt your experience but I've had the exact opposite experience with a Subaru where there were so many false positives it was worse than useless and was instead an active distraction.

Given the general state of auto manufacturer software I would fully expect something like this to be janky and unreliable. It might work in some conditions on some faces but also perform abysmally in many other scenarios.

good way to get notification fatigue and tunnel vision. look ahead, ignore everything else and have a shocked pikachu face when you sideswipe someone because you're well trained to not check your blind spots

I would argue that if someone can't safely operate a vehicle without this then maybe they shouldn't have a license

> adjusting the climate controls,

Well if they hadn't removed climate control buttons, this would not be a concern!

Not being able to easily adjust climate settings is very much a safety concern. And the fact that it beeps at you is them acknowledging it!

I wear some pretty thick glasses and my parents' car CONSTANTLY beeped at me to pay attention to the road.

> It's totally plausible to me that this kind of nudge will save a lot of lives.

Probable especially if it gets drunk drivers off the road but I, for one, would be deeply uncomfortable driving knowing my every twitch is recorded and _more importantly_ open to misinterpretation in case of a claim. I could easily believe otherwise averagely fine drivers being negatively affected by this if the surveillance takes up headspace.

Observation affects systems but not always for the better.

I also wonder how well this fares under night driving conditions where the inside of the car has poor exposure.

Related: https://petapixel.com/2025/07/11/dutch-woman-fined-500-after...

> It also seemed really accurate.

It's really not. When I'm cruising on the highway I like to rest my right wrist on the top of the wheel, which blocks the sensor.

"Watch the road"

"Watch the road"

"Watch the road"

The Kia Niro EVs I drive at work have something that apparently detects driver fatigue. I don't know what sets it off but it starts beeping at fire alarm levels and makes the huge LCD constantly flash up warnings, usually before I've even left the yard. There doesn't appear to be a way to turn it off or stop it, so you just have to put up with a constant "BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING BING" for the whole journey.

Eye tracking

[flagged]