General: Cruise Control Usage

[DaveNP]

In the truck I normally use a very light dab on the brake pedal to turn off the cruise control, just enough to flash the lights turns it off and also wakes up the driver behind that you're going to be slowing down, he might also have cruise control on and without a warning he'll suddenly find himself catching you up.

[MacXC60T5]

Do not know why but I have never used CC on any of the vehicles I have owned It could be my age at 75 and lacking confidence. I suppose I will have to give it a go. I doubt it anyone else out there will admit to not using CC.

[Dippydog]

From the poll results showing thus far it would seem that just under 10% of us don't use it.This has in a way surprised me as although I'm one of those who don't use it I really thought I'd be in a greater minority[sounds like a contradiction in terms I know]than seems to be the case.

[Ryan69]

Originally Posted by gjd

Hello

I don't have a "0" button - my 13 year old V70 has stalk controls with a rocker switch marked +/-. I touch either to activate the control, and then the car holds the speed. I touch either the brake or clutch pedal to disengage, or I can use the rocker to increase or decrease speed.

It's an absolute godsend on the A14 past Cambridge, where there are average speed cameras for miles. It's also been superb in roadworks. I just don't have to worry about my speed.

It is especially reassuring because according to my phone's satnav, my speedo is 3mph too fast. So, when the needle hits 70 and I activate the control, I know I'm doing 67mph!

Wish more people had it/used it. Really frustrating to be overtaken (usually by an Audi) only to have to pull out to pass it a couple of minutes later.

Your phones sat nav is not 100% accurate due to the Americans programming in an error for commercial use, so sat nav's couldn't be used to build missile technology for big bad (insert name) megalomaniac of the day.

[Burty26]

Originally Posted by gjd

Hello

I don't have a "0" button - my 13 year old V70 has stalk controls with a rocker switch marked +/-. I touch either to activate the control, and then the car holds the speed. I touch either the brake or clutch pedal to disengage, or I can use the rocker to increase or decrease speed.

It's an absolute godsend on the A14 past Cambridge, where there are average speed cameras for miles. It's also been superb in roadworks. I just don't have to worry about my speed.

It is especially reassuring because according to my phone's satnav, my speedo is 3mph too fast. So, when the needle hits 70 and I activate the control, I know I'm doing 67mph!

Wish more people had it/used it. Really frustrating to be overtaken (usually by an Audi) only to have to pull out to pass it a couple of minutes later.

Going down the A9 a few weeks ago, cruise control on. at least 3 times car overtakes, pulls in & goes slower than i was originally doing so I have to slow down for the muppet

[biggbn]

I really like cruise, its great if you cover a lot of miles. One of the conditions for my new car was it must have cruise!

[XCeed]

Twice recently I have passed mobile speed camera vans at borderline speed on local roads and spent two weeks worrying that a speeding ticket will be in the post. Thankfully...not! But it's been a salutary lesson and I now drive almost exclusively on the speed limiter/cruise control buttons.
It's so easy to top 30 mph in modern cars (and me in a BMW now!! !)...bad luck if a police van is round the corner (My neighbour is cursing two tickets in two months!)
So at the beginning of EVERY journey, I flick the limiter button to 31 mph and then adjust speed upwards accordingly. I switch to the equivalent cruise control speed on appropriate stretches.
It's a totally new way of driving for me, but it's working! I wish car makers would make this an optional default setting so that I don't have to think about it on start-up.
Just think, if everyone did this, no-one would EVER get a speeding fine again. l

[Baxlin]

Originally Posted by XCeed

Twice recently I have passed mobile speed camera vans at borderline speed on local roads and spent two weeks worrying that a speeding ticket will be in the post. Thankfully...not! But it's been a salutary lesson and I now drive almost exclusively on the speed limiter/cruise control buttons.
It's so easy to top 30 mph in modern cars (and me in a BMW now!! !)...bad luck if a police van is round the corner (My neighbour is cursing two tickets in two months!)
So at the beginning of EVERY journey, I flick the limiter button to 31 mph and then adjust speed upwards accordingly. I switch to the equivalent cruise control speed on appropriate stretches.
It's a totally new way of driving for me, but it's working! I wish car makers would make this an optional default setting so that I don't have to think about it on start-up.
Just think, if everyone did this, no-one would EVER get a speeding fine again. l

I use CC as much as I can, but speed limiter? No thanks. I've tried it on a couple of occasions on previous cars, and in 50+ years of driving, I have never felt so unsafe or not in control of my vehicle.

[XCeed]

Originally Posted by Baxlin

I have never felt so unsafe or not in control of my vehicle.

Why? It’s only a button under your thumb. You can flick it off as quickly as you switch off cc...

[Laird Scooby]

My first car with (working) cruise control was 20 years ago, a 1989 Jag Sovereign 3.6 and i've been using it ever since when i've had cars that have it.

These days i wouldn't voluntarily be without it, especially with all the average speed cameras that are sprouting along dual carriageways and motorways, particularly the A14 past Cambridge, as mentioned by at least one other on here.

Sadly my current 760GLE doesn't have cruise control - yet! It will do though, i plan on fitting one of these :

https://www.conrad-electronic.co.uk/...ntroller-Waeco

As to speedo accuracy, i have an app called "Speedy" on my phone and it's every bit as accurate as the speedo contained in a sat-nav i had some years back with the proviso (as with almost any GPS based speedo) that you need to be on level ground. It's all down to triangulation, if you're driving up or down a hill then you're traveling on the hypotenuse of the triangle, the sat-nav only measures the distance traveled along the base of the triangle against time to calculate speed.

I first noticed this some 10-12 years ago, using the sat-nav with the speed displayed, going down a hill the speed on the sat-nav dropped to just under 80 but the OE speedo showed i was over 90 - on level tarmac i had been doing 80-85 and speed increased downhill.

There are some sat-navs, apps that take elevation into account but they need to be that much more sophisticated that it's not always possible to get accurate results up/down hills even with those.