Cheating the "hands on wheel sensor"?
 

I passed a Tesla Model S on the M1 the other day. As I went past (anyone else noticed all Teslas drive at 60mph?) I noticed something very odd. The driver had a 330ml PET bottle of water jammed into the spokes of the steering wheel. At first I thought that perhaps 80k GBP doesnt even buy you a cup holder but then I wondered if perhaps there was another reason. Could this third of a kg weight on the wheel trick the car into thinking that the wheel is being held by a driver?

Yes that is exactly it - ham a water bottle or use a small bean bag.

Not sure I trust either system to use that method myself.

Stupid people with stupid ideas can only end up with a very bad ending, I seen a video of on youtube of an idiot in a Volvo XC90 doing the same thing, the sad thing is there will be a lot of other idiots doing it now. Sadly it will probably be some innocent 3rd party who pay the price.
Why would anyone override a safety device. Its just idiotic. And sadly even more may be temped to do it after reading this post.

Stupid people will do reckless things whether we talk about it or not. I am never really a fan of censorship.

To be fair, it kinda shows how well these systems are designed, clearly a lot of people do this but we aren't reading about major crashes everyday, I'm not saying I agree with it, but it does kind of highlight how far these systems have come

I understand that the Volvo system eventually ‘learns’ that this weight is normal and leaves you with a period where you need to countersteer when you turn PA off!

Utter rubbish.

Anyone who does this and doesn’t pay the road the attention it needs is asking for trouble. Pay the road the attention required and relaxing on the steering wheel at times with PA engaged makes dual carriageway and motorway driving much more relaxing.

I rather annoyingly thought I had to literally grip the wheel quite firmly at 10 & 2 for it to gauge my hands on the wheel, took me a while to realise I just had to apply pressure to it so I could go back to driving as I normally do, which is more 9 & 3 or 8 & 4 :-)

From a fellow XC60 owner on swedespeed:

https://youtu.be/MYGQU6RuiUM

Apparently, only Florida oranges work.. :D

What an effing pr*ck, overriding safety systems, using the function not as designed while filming a youtube video.

And we wonder why we have stricter and stricter limits imposed on our lives, because of irresponsible people like this.

It's like people who still use a mobile at the wheel, there is no excuse. So, rather than a fine, just have a no appeal, license taken away for 24 months. This would soon stop people. But for a fine and a few points, people are willing to risk it.

:wq