One of the things I was most looking forward to with our long-term Focus was trying out the seven different systems that make up the Driver Assistance pack.
A couple of thousand miles in, and one or two have already made an impression. A house move early this year means I now have around 10 miles of dark and twisty single-lane A-road to negotiate to get from motorway to the front door, and the auto high beam system that automatically flicks the main beam on and off when it detects oncoming traffic or tail-lights ahead is a cracker. It’s yet to dazzle drivers heading towards me, and is sensitive enough to pick up cars a long way ahead. In fact, it works brilliantly.
Semi-brilliant is the clever system that reads speed limit signs. Spot-on 90% of the time, including identifying signs almost completely hidden behind trees and reading motorway gantry electric limits, it has, though, also made up a no-overtaking sign on the M25 and read both an 80mph and a 10mph in residential areas where the sign was actually 30mph. It also missed a couple of signs, especially at night where it will show a 40mph even though the limit has since dropped to 30mph.
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