My car from late 2005 to early 2025, a 2006 Honda CR-V, only has regular old control. That's now my backup car and my main car is 2025 Hyundai Kona EV with adaptive cruise control.
I too thought it would be nice on long drives, but really it hasn't made that much difference. Like everyone I speed on the freeway, but not as much as everyone else, so it rarely has to actually adapt. :-)
The place I've found it makes a huge difference is stop and go or near stop and go traffic. You can't set it to a speed below 20 mph, but if the car it is following goes below that it keeps working all the way down to 0 mph. (You don't have to be going 20 mph to set it. You can set it if you are going above something like 3 or 4 mph, or if you are stopped and there is a stopped car ahead of and it thinks you are on a street. It just sets the speed to 20 mph when you set it under those circumstances).
If the car ahead starts moving again within a few seconds it will automatically follow. If longer it will beep once when the car ahead starts moving and show a message about the lead car leaving. Tapping the accelerator or flicking the cruise control speed adjust switch on the steering wheel will resume following.
Not all adaptive cruise control systems work all the way down to 0 mph. Some cut off well above that. Some only work down to 0 mph on higher trims.
Making sure I get one that does is now on my "must have" requirements for any future car.
I genuinely don't understand what role lane centering serves if you really do keep your hands on the wheel and eyes on the road. It doesn't steer the car if you're steering the car yourself, not when I drove cars that had it. What am I missing?
The only point of cruise control is to take your foot off the peddle and to zone out and stop paying attention to how fast you're going. This is already Not Great to have in cars, but adding the same to the steering wheel, making drivers feel emboldened to look away, is probably a big part of the reason so many cars on the road today seem like they're being driven by deranged psychopaths; the drivers are actually tuned out doing other shit!
