Does 6th gen include driver monitoring tech?

A number of new Toyota cars with Safety Sense 3.0 now come equipped with driver-facing camera that records driver's face into DCM. Aside from video recording, this system will nag you every time you look away from the road.

People discussing this tech in Grand Highlander forums and are not impressed with constant nagging.

Would 6th Gen include this tech, how would it work during off-road driving where you need to look around?

Here how it looks like on 2025 Camry:

 

thats govt interference as usual. you should see the upcoming annoying things coming to vehicles.

 

1. This has apparently existed since 2006 in Toyota/Lexus vehicles so it’s only just coming down-market which I was surprised to learn.

2. I do not like this, I am curious to see what errors some electrical tape being added on pop up if any.

3. I haven’t found anything yet on the US mandating it beyond old articles talking about a rule supposed to have been created mandating it with certain driving assist capabilities but without specifics.

I bet the expectation and pressure from non-government entities like Consumer Reports to include it doesn’t hurt.

4. 4L disables TSS stuff so I would say it does the same here but we’d need someone to test it out if it’s included. I’d be surprised if it’s not at least an option in the new model.

I’m just guessing but LDA only is enabled above 32 MPH so I’d guess the system would care less below a certain speed or stopped.

5. I hear there’s an option to turn it off, the question becomes if it stays off when the vehicle is restarted like LDA or not like PCS. (but I’m sure someone’s tried it)

Anyways, yuck!

 

it probably resets to default after ignition off like stop/start and some other features. i know not all features reset to default currently on our 23 tundra.

luckily the SS feature we have a button to turn it off on the tundra, but i know some lower trims dont have the button, but you can defeat it buy putting it into tow/haul mode.

 

They’ll eventually offer a subscription service to allow you to turn off these cameras.

 

LC250 has this. I was able to shut off the alerts.

 

This is a well-intentioned (being generous) “safety” item that no government is mandating, and no customer is asking for, yet unnecessarily adds complexity and cost. Like something an insurance company blueprinted, and Toyota engineers followed through on.

All of the chatter related to it centers on how to turn it off, so no surprise that it has been around but shelved for years. Pairing it with already expensive trims just adds insult to injury. Toyota should either make it a standalone option, or dump it into the same storage bin as haptic switches.

 

Here is a video with some info on the subject.

Summarizing the issues from the video, there are two primary proposals that are discussed:

(1) Congress wants to impose a per-mile tax on us. Gas taxes, tag fees, ad valorem, and all of the other fees are clearly not enough. And now that there are so many electric vehicles on the road, a gas tax begins to look worrisome. But how do you tax people based on the miles they drive? Well, you have to track everywhere they go. This bill authorizes using a variety of means, including OEM tracking equipment, insurance company trackers, your phone, and other means to track you wherever you travel. Ostensibly, this tracking is so that they can tax you. Right now, it is "exploratory," meaning that they just want to test the feasibility of it; they don't plan to immediately impose the tax. While that temporarily alleviates worry about the tax, it still authorizes the tracking. This bill essentially says that they are going to track you any way that they can, so that they can figure out whether or not they can track you. (I think I can answer that question for them. They can definitely track us.)

(2) They plan to impose some kind of technology to detect impaired driving, to prevent DUI or sleep-deprived driving. I'm a defense attorney, and I have seen the explosion over the past 15 years of companies that sell Ignition Interlock Devices (breathalyzers in your car). It is now an enormous industry, with significant lobbying power. How do you argue against it? Who is in favor of drunk driving? And in the current form, it's only imposed on people who are accused of driving drunk, so no one has any empathy for them. The judges are the real customer (who has to be pleased), but the defendant is the one who pays the bill (>$100/month, frequently for 2-4 years). This bill would ostensibly require such a feature in every car. How is it monitored? We don't know yet. How much does it cost? We don't know yet.

 

So don’t look away from the road

 

OK boomer

 

I think some misguided people look at seat belt nags and think that people started wearing seat belts because of these chimes and not decades of education, enforcement, and a culture change. To this day, people that don't like wearing seat belts just disable the chime while everyone else gets used to car screeching at them when they first start it. I have a number of classic cars, do you know how nice it is to start the car and not have it chime and beep at you because you have dared to start the car without putting seat belt on first?

 

or maybe people realized that they save lives more than not wearing them. you hear of the 1 offs were not wearing a seat belt probably saved them, but 80-90% of time (i am guessing) they save you from horrible injuries.

personally i have been wearing them since high school (early 80's) and its muscle memory now and it feels weird when i dont wear one. also since i have been wearing them since before i met my wife, the wife and the kids all wear them out of habit since i always did and made them wear them.

i would take my chances with having a seat belt on than not. and the buzzing isnt an issue since we wear them so kinda a mute point since it turns off anyway.


friend was ems in the 80/90's and use to talk about the that one wreck where the person went thru the windshield and bounced off the tree head first.

also had a korean uncle fell asleep at the wheel (driving up i-185 to atlanta and rolled his car and got pinned in the foot wheel, they said that is the only thing that save him since the seat mounts snapped and the seat just rolled in the cabin.

i know those stories above are extremes, but they do happen.

 

The point I was making that people would be wearing seat belts, myself included, just as much without seat belt nags. The only thing it does is annoy people that wear seat belts by being over-zealous (why does it have to ding when the car is still in park?). The same will be true for this driver monitoring tech - people will ignore it, will get annoyed at false positives (e.g. wearing heat reflective sunglasses), and the worst offenders will find a way to disable it.

Meanwhile all of us paying $200+ more per car for this anti-feature.

 

I will absolutely support having an alcohol detection device on every car sold in this country. Right now those breathalyzer machines are terribly flawed. They don’t work a lot of the time. It’s possible to defeat them. And let’s face it, someone can very easily take someone else’s car with or without their permission. But if every car had to be equipped with a 100% functioning device that would not allow the vehicle to start if you’re drunk, it would positively impact the real goal which is to prevent drunk driving. I’m old enough to remember the change from manual brakes to power. If a manufacturer can make power brakes that are properly maintained work almost 100% of the time, they can do this. The problem is there is no financial incentive. Without DWI cases thousands of people would be out of work. Power and money. It always comes down to that.

 

The 4th gen Tacoma and the upcoming 6th gen has stop start and I guess you have to manually deactivate it every time you start the vehicle (on the Tacoma at least) that would bother me more than a driver facing camera although both suck donkey dick

 

I’m willing to bet a defeat device pops up if it hasn’t for the new Tacoma.

That said, between a rental Soul and rental Corolla Cross (gas) the stop/start system was so much smarter in the latter I didn’t mind it. It even accounted for brake pedal pressure and had two settings for how aggressive climate control sticks to the set temperature when stopped.

 

You are correct that IIDs (Ignition Interlock Devices) are flawed and can be defeated. So why propose putting them in every car? All of this tech comes at a cost. And these devices won't be just a one-time manufacturing fee. They require monitoring and maintenance, which means that we likely all get a new monthly fee to go with every car. Blindly supporting this is akin to the idiot gun control arguments--"iF iT jUst SaveS oNe liFe..." There is an economic calculation that has to be made, and focusing entirely on an emotional impulse is dumb. Everything comes at a cost. The cost of this is enormous, and the potential benefit is slight. This tech does not work well and currently comes at a cost of >$100/mo. Making something mandatory has never resulted in its cost going down.

I'm also baffled at your comment that "Without DWI cases thousands of people would be out of work." Combined with the little badge under your name, I guess this means that you support a Legal Industrial Complex that supports a little army of government workers. Personally, I don't care if government offices and unnecessary bureaucracies lose funding and have to fire their employees. Those people can then get a real, productive job, rather than just sucking on everyone else's taxes. Law enforcement is not supposed to be a jobs program. If you look at the TSA, you have a prime example of what happens when we turn a public safety function into a program to create more government jobs.

"Safety!" has always been the cry of tyrants. "Fur Ihre Sicherheit," translated as "It's for your safety," was literally the rallying cry of the Nazi party. Whenever someone comes along selling something that they promise you will save lives, you should immediately start asking, "Where does the money go?" The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule it.

 

You might be right.

 

I can definitively tell that you don't understand, even in general terms, what is risk analysis or how to perform cost vs. benefit analysis in risk mitigation cases.

Hypothetical example, someone came up with a magical device that once installed 100% prevents all accidents, no matter what the circumstances. Unfortunately, such device is very expensive, $250,000 each, and there is no way to reduce costs. Do we have the government mandate it installed on every car and therefore make all driving permanently accident-free? Well, obviously not, as doing so would make cars unaffordable to most people. Also only a tiny minority of all cars on the road will be in a serious accident where having such device would pay off. It is like that with alcohol detection device, only numbers shuffled around a bit.

 

Agreed. But we don't need magic to make cars that are 100% safe from any accident that would result in serious personal injury. We can do that today. But the cars would weigh about 10,000 pounds each, have a max speed of about 25mph, get 5mpg and would cost about $200k. Guaranteed to stop all accident fatalities and serious injuries for its occupants. So, how many people want one? Not very many. And, of that small number that want one, how many could or would buy one? Very, very few.

Life is all about trade-offs.

 

You might be right.