Kia does advanced systems differently

Advanced systems

Traffic congestion tends to preclude the use of such things high beam headlights and cruise control. But there have been a few opportunities of late to use both, and discovered that Kia does advanced systems differently. The results are both welcome and unwelcome.

Auto headlight dimming

First up, high beams. It turns out that flipping on the high beams immediately engages the auto dimming feature. This feature lowers the headlights to low beams when a bright light is seen approaching. To my mind, these systems have two drawbacks.

First, I can generally tell in advance that a vehicle is approaching from around a bend or over a hill, and I imagine that this is true for most drivers. This allows for the headlights to be lowered before any chance of impairing another driver’s vision.

Also, I’m reasonably sure that most drivers can distinguish a headlight from a bright yard light. Auto dimming headlights cannot do this.

On the plus side, the system recognizes taillights up ahead perfectly, keeping the following headlights low.

Advanced cruise control

On to cruise control. It turns out that engaging the cruise control immediately engages the advanced cruise control system. These systems, if you are not familiar, control the distance between your vehicle and a vehicle in front of you, if one exists. This system works wonderfully for the most part.

However, Kia also engages lane keeping with the cruise control, which is quite annoying if you wish to simply glide into a passing lane to go around a slower driver. I turned this off.

One other annoyance when approaching and wanting to pass a slower vehicle. Generally, and I’ve found this to be true in other vehicles, the car wants to continue slowing down even as you make the move to pass. A foot on the accelerator becomes a necessity.

All-in-all, skipping the additional steps to activate an advanced or additional system saves a driver time and attention and quite likely saves the manufacturer the expense of additional buttons, screen icons, or switch positions.

Smart move. We’ll give it an A-.

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