Weird Driving Assist Incident

Our 2016 Subaru Forester has some driving assist features, including collision avoidance. If it senses that you are in danger of colliding with something in front of you, depending how dire the situation, it will warn you or even automagically apply the brakes.

The Forester is Beth's car, so I don't get much time behind the wheel, but there have been a couple of occasions where I was in the car and it kicked in, just slightly. In those cases, no actual collision was imminent, it was merely a case of a car pulling into our lane a bit aggressively. Still, it was impressive to see the feature in action.

Last summer we were staying at a cabin in northern Minnesota. It was part of a small "resort", accessed by a very long, winding drive. One fine, very sunny July late morning, I was piloting the entire family out for the day's excursion. Gorgeous, clear weather. Imagine my surprise, as we rounded the final bend in the aforementioned long driveway, when the trusty Forester ground to an abrupt halt!

It wasn't quite as sudden as a collision, nor was there any tell-tale sound of metal crunching. More like hitting a really big pile of sand, in the middle of the road, at 20 mph. Still, I was more than unnerved. I jumped out of the car, and looked in front--no pile of sand. I looked underneath--nothing hanging from the chassis.

As I raised my head in perplexity, it dawned on me...in front of the vehicle was a sharp, heavily shaded  turn. The woods in front of the car, combined with the brightness and angle of the sun, had fooled the driving assist cameras into thinking we were about to run into a proverbial brick wall!