City Safe
 

I have a question to all with City Safe. Is it actually possible to get this to stop you car without the parking sensors bleeping first and then chickening out and braking? I can't!!

I've recently changed to an XC60 with City Safe. Can't for the life of me get it to work as I roll up to the car in front in traffic. Short of lining up some large cardboard boxes in my drive and heading for them, is there anyone out there actually experienced this pulling your car up on a regular basis in a queue of traffic?

I've got city safe on my XC70. Like you I don't feel it is likely to activate when really needed.
... but I have had it activate on two occasions in the last year, both on clear dry sunny days.

1. On a mini roundabout whilst towing our caravan when it braked for no reason. Awesome, just what I needed with 1500kg behind me. There was no one else near me at the time.

2. Whilst drawing into a parking space it detected the high hedge in front of me and activated leaving me 6 foot away from the hedge. Admittedly I was pulling in with a fair bit of pace but not so I was not able to stop. Maybe that was it working. Neither brake or accelerator pedal had a foot on them.

That said the parameters for it to work are quite narrow so maybe you've not really replicated the necessary conditions to activate it.

If you think it's not working I believe some dealers have an inflatable to drive at to test it.

To be fair whilst my own eyes and ears are still functioning I have left city safe activated but cast that fact to the back of my mind and continue to drive as I have for the last 30 yrs, watching out for Crazy distracted folk trying to harm me and my passengers.

I’ve had mine triggered a few times when parking facing bushes and also once when the car in front was turning left and I didn’t slow as it would have turned off before I got there.

You wouldnt want it triggering regularly in traffic. It really is a violent event that leaves you initially wondering what the hell has happened.

The speed differential between you and the car in front has to be greater than something like 5mph so perhaps that isn’t met in rolling traffic.

You do not understand the system , It is not something you operate , What is does is when it detects there is a collision imminent if the driver does nothing it gets ready and applies the brakes at the very last moment , there may still be a collision but a much smaller one than if it had not intervened . In most cases it stops with a gap and hits nothing .
Best keep trying to drive properly , avoiding collisions like you have all your life , Then one day in the future it might just save you if your concentration lapses .

It is not only in traffic queues it works , it works out on the road at speed .
I have been driving these Volvos around for the last 10 years with city safety fitted and never ever had an incident with it activating , neither will most reasonable drivers .

Exactly

Volvo say slightly different in that only the new XC90 is covered for all road speeds.https://www.volvocars.com/uk/about/o...ns/city-safety

Mmm, I consider myself to be a reasonable driver so I must be unlucky then. My first example was as I rolled slowly to a mini roundabout 10mph ish, no cars present but the road I was in sloped down into the roundabout which was covered in white reflective paint. I can only surmise that the system detected the paint and activated. My good lady passenger was surprisingly potty mouthed using the full version of WTF. It was a good job the CitySafe message was on the dash to prove it wasn't me!

To the OP, it is worth read of the manual for your particular model as I too misunderstood it when I first drove my car. Then as both Clan and I suggest just drive as you would normally, safely and considerately whilst avoiding the antics of the highway maniacs but above all enjoy the ride in a mighty fine Volvo.

I do understand the system, after 32 years in IT and 10 years as an engineer I like to consider myself somewhat erudite. The point I'm making is that I've tried to get it to engage to the point where my backside has gone 5p -10p. It hasn't engaged but the parking sensors have. How fast and close do you have to approach a car before the system puts you through the windscreen. What are the algorithms and trigger criteria? Surely it should be possible to some extent to produce a potential situation or is that the system is so last minute that it’s not? Personally, I see a potential situation in the city as mainly rolling toward a car running at low speed with low approach speeds. Take an example of congested traffic with everyone looking to get home quickly. Typically, nobody is moving more than about 10 to 15 mph, that’s when I'd want the system to look out for me, glancing left or right to watch the cyclist when the car in front brakes for the pedestrian.

Mine has activated twice.

Firstly it will only activate if it deems you dont have control.
Secondly, Volvo didn’t want you to rely on it so it may indeed cause a minor collision.
Finally, it brakes so hard that it hurts.

The scenarios I had it in was:

A car was turning right in front of me, it was creeping forward as another car cleared its path, I didn’t slow down (as I could see it was clearing) the car just seen the creeping car turning right and slammed on the anchors.

The second time was driving through a gap in a hedge when a tarpaulin blew across, only 5 mph but I nearly broke my thumb on the steering wheel.

Wonderful description lol :err:

..a video that may assist you ?? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8DBf8GBVmME

...or perhaps a visit to a dealer with facilities to demonstrate it in action so you then know how your car reacts or not as the case may be??

....or buy a large inflatable dinosaur and drive at it. Please post a video if you do.

Mine has triggered twice while rolling slowly towards a barrier which started to raise it slammed on and I was like 'wtf did i just hit!'.. thats when I realised I had citysafe..

I believe there is an s60 video on youtube showing it react with cardboard boxes.

To reiterate what everyone else is saying, the City Safe System is designed to only intervene if if thinks you are about to crash, it is not any sort of adaptive cruise control, whereby it stops you behind other cars.

It will only intervene at the point, whereby if it waits literally any longer there will be a crash, and it then throws on the anchors, and stops the car in the shortest distance possible.
So the answer to your question, is there a safe way to test it in day to day traffic, then the answer is no, because if you wait longer than the system to operate, and it doesn't, there will be a crash.

I have had it operate once, I was approaching a roundabout, with a car crossing in front of me, with my intention to slot in behind it. The city safe started to operate, as it could see a car in front of me that it thought I was heading straight for. As the other car left the roundabout, control was restored.