Chevy Safety Assist Explained: Emergency Braking on Dark CT Roads

A great deal of driving in Connecticut takes place in the dark. By late October the evening commute falls in the dark and when the clocks are set back in November it is already dark around 5 p.m. And when you get off the main roads near Avon, Canton, or Burlington the street lights cease to be there, so that you have two lanes, stone walls, sharp curves and occasionally a deer standing by the edge of the headlights.

New Chevrolets are supplied with a safety package known as Chevy Safety Assist, with the emergency braking function receiving the most attention. But what does it actually do at night, and what doesn't it do? The following guide sets out each feature in simple language, using the limitations that Chevrolet itself has stated. If you would like to see these features in action in a real vehicle, you can ask O'Neill's Chevrolet on Route 44 in Avon to demonstrate them.

What Chevy Safety Assist Includes

Chevy Safety Assist includes six different features and is standard equipment on most of the new Chevy models; it does not require an OnStar plan or any kind of subscription to function.

• Forward Collision Alert: warns you if you're closing in on the car ahead too fast
• Automatic Emergency Braking: can brake hard on its own if a crash with the car ahead looks likely
• Front Pedestrian Braking: does the same for a person in front of you
• Lane Keep Assist with Lane Departure Warning: gives a gentle steering nudge if you drift out of your lane
• Following Distance Indicator: shows how many seconds you are behind the car ahead
• IntelliBeam: turns your high beams on and off for you

The situation with respect to the main features on a dark back road is as follows. The Following Distance Indicator is simple in that on a wet night having more seconds of space means having more time to stop.

Automatic Emergency Braking

The system called Automatic Emergency Braking employs a camera situated behind the windshield to monitor the vehicle in front. Chevrolet states that it functions at speeds ranging from 5 to 50 mph; if a collision seems likely and you do not take any action, it will apply heavy braking; and if you have already begun braking, it will provide additional braking force.

Forward Collision Alert works alongside it. It emits the alarm first so that you can take action, and braking serves as a backup.

What it means at night is that the system is designed to detect the vehicles you are tailing. On a dark road this is most useful in the case where the car in front of you comes to a sudden stop, for example when someone brakes sharply to make a turn into a driveway on Route 179. The system isn't intended to identify every possible object that might be on the road, and Chevrolet notes that its performance can be degraded where lighting is poor.

An upgraded version is available on some Chevy models. Chevrolet states that some vehicles equipped with advanced forward cameras are able to brake for a car in front of you at speeds as high as those on the highway. The Enhanced Automatic Emergency Braking, which is on some models, functions at speeds above 2 mph. The particular version you receive will depend on the model and trim, so you should ask when you are shopping.

Front Pedestrian Braking: Know Its Limits After Dark

Front Pedestrian Braking keeps an eye out for people who are directly in front of your vehicle and functions between 5 and 50 mph, being able to warn you and apply hard braking if necessary.

However, Chevrolet makes it clear that its system has limited capabilities with regard to nighttime and low visibility conditions. This aspect is important here, since a person walking on the shoulder of an unlit road while wearing a dark coat is precisely the situation in which the system might not provide any assistance. Furthermore, Chevrolet also states that the system may not detect children or people who are part of a group or who are not fully visible.

Therefore, take it as a backup rather than a justification for speeding on unlit roads.

What About Deer?

The major question in Connecticut is this, and the frank answer is that you shouldn't rely on it.

Chevrolet refers to Automatic Emergency Braking as a system that applies to vehicles being followed and calls Front Pedestrian Braking a system intended for use with people; it does not describe it as being a system for animals. A deer leaping out from the woods at night is beyond the scope of what these systems are designed to detect.

What helps with deer is still the basics:

• Slow down on wooded roads, most of all at dawn and dusk
• Use your high beams when no one is coming the other way
• Watch the edges of the road for eyes reflecting your lights
• If you see one deer, expect more behind it
• Brake firmly and stay in your lane rather than swerving hard

If you swerve to avoid a deer you might end up crashing into a tree, a stone wall, or oncoming traffic. It is generally safer to hit the brakes and stay in your lane.

IntelliBeam: The Most Useful Feature on Dark Roads

For night driving IntelliBeam is probably the most useful feature in the range. It activates your high beams when the road ahead is clear and switches back to low beams when it detects headlights coming toward you or the taillights of the vehicle you are following.

That is important since many drivers leave their low beams on in order not to blind another person. With high beams you can see much further down the road, so you notice a deer, a walker, or a fallen branch earlier and have more time to stop. IntelliBeam keeps the high beams on for a greater amount of time without you needing to think about it.

Lane Keep Assist on Back Roads

Lane Keep Assist keeps an eye on the lines marked on the road, and if you drift without switching on your turn signal it will make a slight movement of the steering wheel to guide you back.

On the kind of highways such as I-84 it works fine, but on secondary roads it has a weakness in that it needs to be able to see the lines. Faded paint, roads which have no center line, snow and heavy rain are all capable of preventing it from working. It is useful when you're tired after a long drive back home, but it cannot stop you from drifting on a road it can't read.

Keep the Camera Clean

The various features in question make use of a camera situated behind the windshield, close to the rearview mirror. Chevrolet has stated that the system might not function as intended if that section of the glass is obstructed or not correctly cleaned.

In a Connecticut winter, that means:

• Clear all the snow and ice off the windshield, not just a peephole
• Keep the glass clean of road salt film
• Replace worn wiper blades before the snow starts
• Fix windshield cracks near the mirror area

Why Buy From O'Neill's Chevrolet

They'll demonstrate how the features function. Safety features are difficult to understand when looking at a brochure. With O'Neill's, the salesperson can go through the settings with you and show you exactly what each alert sounds and looks like before you leave the premises.

A single salesperson assists you at every stage; he or she is the one who stays with you from the moment you ask your first question until you receive the keys.

The inventory is available online, so before you go, you can check the current inventory and pricing.

They've been carrying on with this for a long time; O'Neill's has been in the business since 1920 and the dealership states that it is one of the oldest Chevrolet dealers in Connecticut.

The service is provided on-site and it would be helpful to have a service department that carries out work on Chevrolets every day. Oil changes, tune-ups, and repairs are all carried out at that same address.

The Bottom Line

Chevy Safety Assist is very useful but does have some limitations, and these become apparent on dark roads. Emergency braking works most effectively when it comes to stopping a vehicle which is in front of you. Pedestrian braking has limited performance at night, the systems were not intended for use with deer, and IntelliBeam is the feature that is most helpful after dark.

The best safety system is still an alert driver going a sensible speed. Chevy Safety Assist is there for the moment you miss something. If you want to see how it works, stop by O'Neill's Chevrolet at 5 West Main Street in Avon and ask for a walkthrough on your test drive.