Our cars Limiting factor
Our Yaris’s insistent approach to changing speed limits is causing annoyance. Sean Keywood
A couple of months ago, the EU brought in rules mandating the installation of intelligent speed assistance technology on all new cars, requiring them to automatically warn their drivers if they are breaking the speed limit. Although the UK is no longer part of the EU, manufacturing practicalities mean that models sold here are also highly likely to come with the technology – and this includes our Yaris. Now, I realise it’s hard to complain about a driver being warned if they are breaking the speed limit – particularly from a risk-conscious fleet manager’s point of view. However, I do object to a car making a bonging noise, as the Yaris does, every time the speed limit changes. It’s particularly noticeable if I drive into my local town centre from my house, as this journey sees the limit go from 30mph, to 50mph, to 40mph, and back to 30mph within a few hundred metres.
To get rid of the annoying noises, I have to turn off the road sign assist feature, which with the Yaris includes both these limit change notifications and the speeding warning. This involves using a button on the steering wheel to click into a settings menu on the instrument cluster display, scrolling onto another page of the menu, and selecting the function to turn off the road sign assist.
Under the EU regulation, the intelligent speed assistance system has to restart every time the car is switched on, meaning the road sign assist function has to be turned off again each time I use the car, should I not want the annoying limit change noises to also return. And while I realise Toyota’s hands are tied here to a certain extent (although it’s their decision to package the various
systems up in this way), I do find it annoying to have to go through the whole procedure again, rather than there being a shortcut button that could bring up my preferred settings, for instance. Also, it is annoying that to remove the bonging sound, I have to turn off the whole system, since I do find having the current limit passively displayed useful from time to time, such as
when passing a speed camera – and turning off only the limit-change noise is possible with other cars I’ve tested recently.
Road sign assist is just one of a wide array of ADAS fitted to our Yaris as part of the Toyota Safety Sense package. This also includes the intelligent adaptive cruise control, which I am more appreciative of, finding it particularly useful on long motorway drives. However, I do also have a quibble with the reversing camera (not part of Safety Sense, but as with that package standard throughout the Yaris range). This is because, unlike with some other systems, this features guidelines on the camera view that only point straight back from the vehicle, rather than bending to match steering wheel inputs.
Of course, at less than four metres long the Yaris is hardly the trickiest vehicle in the world to park – but nevertheless, it feels like something where there’s room for improvement.
Toyota Yaris Premiere Edition 129bhp
P11D £28,715 Price as tested £28,715 Official consumption 67.2mpg Test consumption 63.9mpg Mileage 2,896
www.businesscar.co.uk | September/October 2024 | 51 Why we’re running it
To see if a conventional hybrid powertrain is the right answer for fleets’ small car needs.
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