Which often leads me to panic and think I’m not indicating. Now, these systems are mandatory and yes, they can be turned off – and very few car firms have really nailed them.
But I have encountered better implementation in cars from other manufacturers, which, given Volvo’s reputation for safety, feels a bit odd. If any firm should have the expertise to nail the implementation of driver safety systems, it’s surely Volvo.
I hope over-the-air updates will improve these systems. Because even a small improvement would enable me to spend more time focusing on the many, many things that the EX30 does really well.
Update 3
As email subject lines go, “I’m concerned about your driving” certainly grabbed my attention. Given I try to be fairly careful and considerate at the wheel, I can’t recall having been told that since one of my early driving lessons.
The sender was reader and keen EX30 owner David Williams, who decided to write about the EX30’s driver monitoring alerts. I’ve found the monitor to be somewhat over-attentive, occasionally setting off when I’m looking in the mirrors or telling me I’m tired because it mistook a grimace for a yawn.
But David said that he and his wife had covered more than 18,000 miles in their EX30 “and never had that issue”. In fact, he even found a safe environment to try to replicate my example of setting the sensors off by looking out of the window but never triggered the warning.
He suggested that perhaps I had been driving at speed and looking out of the window for several seconds, “which is rather concerning”.
Well, fret not, David: I assure you I don’t do that, and I’m going to try to adjust my seating position a bit to see what improves. Generally, though, David’s feedback was much like that of other EX30 owners who have been in touch, in that he loves it. “We think it’s a brilliant car and wouldn’t swap it for anything,” he wrote.
Andy Poulton is another satisfied owner (well, I say owner, but he’s on Volvo’s subscription scheme), and he called his Twin Motor Ultra Performance model the “best car I have had in 58 years of motoring”. Mind you, his first EX30 suffered from a number of software issues, which were largely resolved after his garage instructed him how to do a hard reset.