There are plenty of articles on how the Bendix® Wingman® Fusion™ is supposed to work. For the most part, the system works as advertised. I want to give a first hand look at how it works in the real world.
The system is advertised to activate automatically once your speed reaches 37 mph, but I have seen the system activate at what seems to be random speeds. I’ve seen the system activate as low as 35 MPH and as high as 50 MPH. Everything from adaptive cruise control to lane departure warning will be watching your every move. The adaptive cruise control will maintain a proper following distance from the vehicle in front of you. What you have to get used to is seeing the slower vehicles you may be coming up on and moving over BEFORE the system “sees” them. If you do not move over first, the system will begin to meet their speed and you will loose all momentum.
You can put your foot on the accelerator to override the Wingman® Fusion™ Adaptive Cruise Control, but the system still sees the slow vehicle and lets you know you are too close with a visual symbol on the dash display and a constant audible beeping tone.
If you do not move over, the system will; deactivate the cruise control, activate the engine brake to slow you down, and IT WILL LOCK UP THE BRAKES if you do nothing. Even when the cruise control is deactivated!
At one point in my trip, the system saw a threat that was not there and locked up the brakes for an instant pucker factor of 10. There is nothing like a 30 ton tractor-trailer locking up the brakes when you were not expecting it.®®
The other main system in the Wingman® Fusion® is the Lane Departure Warning. This is a forward facing camera that watches the lines on the road to determine if you have drifted too far to one side or the other. Drift too far for too long without a turn signal and (SIREN SOUNDS) the audible tone coming out of the truck radio speakers is loud enough to make a rock star jealous. I thought I hit something or the truck just blew up. To say it startled me would be an understatement. And, no, the volume is not adjustable at the drivers level.
The biggest problem I had with this is when the right lane cut off to the right because it was an exit lane, the system would sound off with a lane departure warning. It wouldn’t happen at every exit ramp either, so there was no way to prepare for the coming siren.
There is a way to bypass the system for those times you don’t want the system sounding off in your ear; like construction zones,city streets or winding roads. In the International® LT™ series tractor, there is a button just above the air valves that will deactivate the system for 15 minutes. It looks like a truck skidding off the road. Push this button and find a little reprieve from the noise of the lanes departure siren.
The system seems to work for what it was intended. I can see where it could prevent a major accident when someone is not paying enough attention or in bad weather when you just can’t see far enough ahead.
I’m just wondering if the system will lock up on icy or snow covered roads at a most inconvenient time.
With driver-less cars on the horizon, Electronic Logging Devices now mandated by the D.O.T., and the disastrous consequences of distracted drivers, the powers that be are trying to eliminate driver error/inattention and this system might be a step in the right direction.
