How To Disable And Adjust Your Car’s Safety Nannies

If your car’s safety nannies are driving you crazy, or you want to tone down the sensitivity of these systems, Car Talk can help. Many of the systems can be disabled, and some that can’t be turned off can be adjusted so that they don’t drive you bonkers.

Here at Car Talk, we understand your frustration. We’ve owned and tested vehicles with such intrusive and frequent nanny squawks that we simply ignored them or shut them off. A safety system we train ourselves to ignore entirely is no help to anyone. That said, we are not against driver-assist and active safety systems as a whole. They’ve saved our bacon a few times, and if you use them, you may have a similar positive experience.

One of the most important safety systems is forward collision prevention and crash mitigation with automatic emergency braking. When these systems work correctly, you never notice them. However, if you are about to hit something head-on, they can save you from that crash or perhaps make the impact less severe and save your life.

Automakers came together with safety agencies to adopt these systems voluntarily. In 2023, automakers met their obligation and adopted the systems, which in many cases, were third-generation systems vastly better than the original editions. The government didn’t need to lift a finger to make that happen.

IIHS says that Automatic emergency braking (AEB) and forward collision warning (FCW) reduce the incidence of police-reported rear-end crashes by 27% to 50%. That’s an incredible statistic. Whiplash injuries from such crashes are among the most costly; your insurance premium reflects that. So, we’re not going to tell you how to rewire something under the hood to turn off technology that may save you or another motorist from injury. Rather, we’re going to offer some advice on how to live with safety systems and explain which systems can be adjusted or turned off entirely using the vehicle’s menus.

Systems That Can Be Shut Off (And Will Stay Off)

If you just want to stop the constant beeping and wheel nudges from the army of safety gremlins your vehicle has, there are many that you can just disable. Some will even stay off. Some return when you restart the vehicle. Here is a list of some items that most automakers allow you to simply shut off completely and leave off:

• Lane Keeping Assist (helps steer you back into your lane)
• Lane Keeping Warnings/Alerts
• Parking Assist
• Speed Limit Assist/Regulation
• Blind Spot Warning
• Drowsiness and Attention Monitoring and Alerts
• Rear Cross Traffic Alert and Auto Braking
• Adaptive Cruise Control (reverts to normal cruise control)
• Rear Seat Reminder

That is quite a long list. We understand why a driver may wish to disable some of these safety “features.” Maybe you park in a garage with tight dimensions and don’t need to hear parking sensor bells and whistles yelling at you as you pull in and out. Perhaps you’d rather not have Lane Departure Warning ding at you if you move over to a safe distance rather than crowd out a jogger or bicyclist. Maybe you don't have any young children living with you and you don't need to be told to look in the back seat for nothing. We get it.

Some brands make turning on and off the safety systems quite simple. For example, Ford’s Lane Departure Warning and Assist in the Bronco Sport only works above 45 MPH, and the driver can toggle it on or off with a tap of the left steering wheel stalk. Other brands hide the on/off/adjustment beneath many layers of menus that you need to tap through when parked.

Some of these systems you should leave on. Who in their right mind disables rear cross-traffic alerts? That is the system that helps watch your backside when you are backing out of a parking space at the supermarket, and a nutjob is flying down the aisle like it is the last lap of the Indy 500. That particular system will only come on if you are in danger of an accident you cannot control.

Systems You Can Adjust To Be Less Annoying

Many systems can be adjusted for sensitivity. A great example of this is forward collision prevention with automatic emergency braking. Almost every manufacturer will let you adjust the sensitivity. The adjustment will be something like “Normal-Close-Far.” It may instead say “Early -Normal-Late.” If you find that you are triggering this type of system too often, you may be happier with the Close or Late setting so that it will not come on as often in your normal driving.

Haptic - Audible - Visual Alerts

Many safety systems will give you a choice of how you wish to be notified that a hazard exists. One of our favorite ways is haptic alerts. Haptic means the sense of touch or feeling. The word is unusual in that both the old Greek and Latin words for this were similar. Haptic warnings in your vehicle can take the form of vibration through the steering wheel or a little goose in your seat. We prefer these to being buzzed or beeped at.

Some warnings offer a visual or audible option. Blind-spot monitoring is a great example. You can often opt to see a little color code in the side mirror and/or get a beep if you start to change lanes when a vehicle is beside you.

Changing the type of warning or notification you get is a helpful way to tolerate the systems working to keep you safe. You can change the alert types in the settings menus of your infotainment system.

A Few Driving Tips That May Help You Live With Adaptive Cruise Control & AEB

Adaptive cruise control is the type that controls your speed by watching the vehicle ahead of you and matching its speed. It can be a great way to reduce stress in moderate traffic. Rather than constantly canceling and re-applying your cruise control as traffic slows and speeds up slightly due to congestion or hills, the car adjusts your speed safely. Automatic emergency braking is different, but it uses the same technology, and it will slow or stop you if you approach a vehicle from behind too rapidly.

Both of these have a similar weakness. If you see a vehicle ahead with its right turn signal on that will be turning into a road or parking lot, you know that it is safe to come up rapidly behind the vehicle and close that space quickly. You can see the driver ahead will turn, and if they opt not to, you could simply brake and steer to the left a bit to avoid contact. We all do this. The problem is that AEB and Adaptive Cruise Control don't know the vehicle may turn and don't trust you to time the situation perfectly. Therefore, they brake way too far back from our standpoint.

The solution here is to adapt and adjust your driving habits. When you see this scenario playing out, change how you drive. Do not approach the vehicle ahead of time, as it is about to turn rapidly. Instead, maintain a bit more distance by slowing down. You can speed up as they turn out of your path. This may seem obvious, but drivers who are not familiar with how AEB and ACC work often think there is something wrong with the car’s safety systems. There isn’t. The car just has been programmed to behave differently than you expect.

A similar thing will happen when a vehicle merges in front of you too closely. The systems will brake to rapidly maintain the set distance. You can either adapt or stop using the ACC if this bothers you. Our goal here is to help you understand that the system isn’t doing anything wrong. It’s just following its safety programming.

Hybrid and EV Humming

One of the most annoying noises automakers have added in recent years is hybrid and electric vehicle humming when your vehicle moves at low speeds. The safety system adds these sounds to alert pedestrians that a vehicle is moving around them. If you want to stop these systems, you must lobby Congress or try your luck with NHTSA. The government has forced automakers to adopt these sounds, which are not defeatable,

Seatbelt Chimes

We vehicle testers often park in a deserted area and move the car into many positions for photography. Boy, do the seatbelt chimes drive us completely insane. We are in and out of the vehicle a dozen or more times in under ten minutes, and we are never moving that car more than 1 MPH. Still, the seatbelt chimes go crazy. Some vehicles we test turn on the seatbelt chimes when the vehicle is in Park. Unfortunately, the seatbelt chimes cannot be set to actuate at, say, 10 MPH or at least be made to stay silent until the car is in Drive or Reverse. Sorry.

Safety System Adjustments - Where Are They?

Safety system controls and adjustments can be hidden anywhere in your vehicle. We’ve seen them on the roof of Subarus, the lower left dash of Hondas, on the steering stalk of Fords, and inside the gauge clusters of Toyotas. Most often, they are found in the settings on the center infotainment screen. Your manual or your dealer is also a great place to start if they seem to be hiding from you if you’ve looked in those places. You can try social media clubs for your make and model car, but be prepared to be told “LOOK IN THE MANUAL” by other members.

We hope the overview has helped you. Our main message is that if you make adjustments and are willing to change a few driving habits, these systems can be very unobtrusive and may well save you from a bad situation.

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