Hi there smart driver, Rick with Smart Drive Test
talking today about how to use cruise
control. I had a comment from Jannely d
she wanted some more information about
how to use cruise control because I had
mentioned in one of the other videos.
Cruise control has several benefits and
you want to use it because it will give
you better fuel economy for your vehicle.
As well, it will reduce stress and
fatigue over a longer trips, and finally
in any case, it always moves to reduce
distracted driving. Stick around, we'll be
right back with that information.
[OPENING CREDITS & MUSIC]
Hi there smart driver, welcome back. Rick
with Smart Drive Test talking to you
today about how to use cruise control.
And yes, you do want to use cruise
control because there are set several
benefits to using cruise control. The
first benefit is that you're going to
get better fuel economy because you're
maintaining a steady speed with your
vehicle. And when you get better fuel
economy, that means more money in your
pocket. So you want to use it for that
purpose. The second reason is that it's
going to reduce stress and fatigue over
a longer drive because you're not
running up on other vehicles and those
types of things and having aggressive
use of the primary controls. And you know,
cussn' and swearing and banging on the
steering wheel because other vehicles
are going as fast as you would like them
to.
And finally, it reduces distracted
driving because you're not always
monitoring the speed of your vehicle
because you have it on cruise control.
And you know that you have a set speed.
Now one of the things about cruise
control is that a lot of people say they
don't have feel that they have total
control of the vehicle. And I can only
imagine what those people are going to
be saying when they get in one of these
self piloting vehicles and they
have to sit in the driver's seat and
they feel like they don't have control.
Cruise control gives you a fair amount
of control compared to a self- piloting
vehicle. Anyway, I digress.
One of the key techniques to using
cruise control is that you want to set
the speed at a couple of kilometers or a
couple of miles an hour less than what
the traffic flow is. That way you're not
going to be running up on vehicles and
having to turn your cruise off and on
all the time. If you set it a couple of
kilometers less or at what the traffic
flow is on a multi-lane highway, the
other traffic is just going to flow
around you and you stay in the
right-hand lane. So that's a key
technique to using cruise control, and
not having to turn it on and off all
the time. Now the other thing that people
say to me about cruise control is when
they get on the freeway
they always have to turn it off when
they're passing another vehicle. The
reason for a freeway and a multi-lane
highways is so that you can maintain a
steady speed. When you're passing other
vehicles don't turn the cruise control
off and then speed up - that negates the
benefit of having cruise control. Just
leave it on the constant speed. If you're
doing two or three kilometers an hour
more than the other vehicle that you're
passing, just go out into the passing
lane, pass the other vehicle and move
back into the right-hand lane when you
get past them. So that's the keys to
using the cruise control. Now all cruise
controls are essentially the same. They
have an on/off switch - you can see here
in the image. As well, they have a set and
a resume. And the set button is the
deceleration button, and the resume
button is also the acceleration button.
You can essentially drive the vehicle
with the cruise controls. Now when you
get it up to speed and you want to set
the speed, say for example at 90
kilometers an hour or 55 miles an hour, you
simply hold your foot on the throttle
push the set button - after you've
turned it on obviously. Push the set
button on the cruise control and it will
set and it will operate at 90 kilometers
an hour or 55 miles per hour.
Now if you go through town and you touch
the brake, the cruise control will
disengage. When you go through town and
come up back on the other side and you
want to go back up to 90 kilometers an
hour 55 miles an hour you simply hit
resume again once you get a little bit
of speed and it will go back to that
previous set speed. Now the other thing
is, is if you want to decelerate you can
simply hold down the set button and it
will the vehicle will decelerate in
speed so long as you hold down the
deceleration button.
The other thing is is that the resume
button - you can hold it down and the
vehicle will accelerate as long as you
hold that down. Now the one thing that
people often don't know about the cruise
control is that the resume--the acceleration
button--if you click it one time--for
every time that you click it--it will go
up one kilometer an hour, if you're in a
country that works on metric; if you're
in the United States, the speed will go up one mile an hour.
And it's the same with the set button--
the acceleration button--if every time
you click it it will go down one
kilometer an hour or one mile per hour. So
for example, if you want to set it at 55
miles an hour and it's at 58 miles an
hour when you set it you simply click
it three times, the vehicle decelerate to
exactly 55 miles per hour.
Now some of these newer pickup trucks
and commercial vehicles, if you have it
on cruise - when it goes downhill and it
goes up five or ten kilometers or five
miles an hour above the set speed that
you have it on the Jake brake will kick
in automatically - the engine brake will
kick on. So know that if you're driving
an older commercial vehicle or you have
a newer pickup truck it will do that as
wel. So what we're going to do here, we're
going to go out on the highway,
we're going to work the cruise control
and we're going to show you how it works.
As well, I've got a camera set up my
speedometer - new and improved how to use
the cruise control and we'll show you
how to do that.
Everything going well, you'll be able to
see the speed as well. Hi there smart
drivers we're out on the highway here and
we're talking about how to use cruise
control. And I have my cruise control set
at 90 kilometers an hour, which is 55
miles an hour. And on this vehicle the
speedometer's off a little bit. So it's just
a touch over 90 kilometers an hour, which
is exactly 90 kilometers an hour on this
vehicle. And you can also see on the dash
that there is an indicator there that
tells you that cruise control is in fact
on. On this Honda it's a green light and
it says cruise control. Different
vehicles will have different indicators
on the dash to tell you that you have
the cruise control set. And it's on and
you can see here in front of me that I'm
doing 90 kilometers an hour exactly, which is the
posted speed limit. Which most of the
time is going to be less than what the
traffic flow is. And you can see here
that I'm keeping a good distance in front
of me; that vehicle front of me is
obviously, it's doing the speed limit as
well - the white vehicle that the pickup
truck just passed. And oftentimes if you put
the cruise control on the posted speed
limit the other traffic is just going to
flow around you and you're not going to
have to pass - you're not going to speed
up and those types of things. Now one
thing I do want to show you here:
oftentimes when people get on multi-lane
highways they negate the benefits of
cruise control, which is
improving fuel economy because they turn
it off and on all the time when they
pass other vehicles. When you're on a
multi-lane road like this and you're
passing that vehicle as I am right now,
you just leave the cruise control on, move
out to the left hand lane and stay in
this lane you don't have to--you know--
accelerate past the vehicle because as
soon as you accelerate, you negate all
the benefits of increased fuel economy.
Unless there's a whole pile of vehicles behind
you--youj just watching the rear-view mirror here--there
isn't anybody behind me. So there's no
hurry for me to get by that car and now
I'm by that car I can see them in the
rearview mirror here and I just put my
signal on and I move back over to the
right-hand lane. I don't hang out in the
left-hand lane and I leave my signal on all
the way into that lane. And cruise
control -
you never came off cruise control; you're
not stressed out, you're not fatigued - so
just leave cruise control on when you're on a
multi-lane road. Just move over to the
passing lane, pass the other vehicle and
then as soon as you get past, get back
into the right-hand lane. That way you
get the full benefit of cruise control.
As I mentioned
earlier, cruise control has three main
buttons: it has an on/off switch - on the
Honda here it's on the dash. On different
vehicles it could be on the signals
where the controls are for the cruise
control. A lot of times, it's on the
steering wheel here: on this one here it
has a 'Resume' and 'Set' on the steering wheel, so when you get
it up to speed. So the speed limit here
is going to go to 100 kilometers an hour so
instead of pushing down on the throttle
and resetting it, I just hold the resume
butto,n which is also the accelerate
butto.nAand you can see that as long as I
hold that button it's going to
accelerate. You can see that the
speedometer is climbing and it's going
to go up to a hundred kilometers an hour.
And as soon as it just gets a little bit
past 100 kilometers an hour --right about
there--then I just let go of the resume
button and it will set at that new speed.
And as well, if I wanted to slow down--if
there were vehicles in front of me, for example -I can
see down and I saw the gap between the
vehicles slowing down--and I wanted to
decelerate, I just push the set button
and that vehicle
will slow down as long as you
hold that button. So now it's at 90
kilometers an hour and now it will set
at that speed as you can see on the
speedometer. As well, if I accelerated
back up to 100 kilometers an hour, I hold
down on the resume button--the
acceleration button--it will accelerate
for as long as I wanted to. And say for
example, I wasn't paying attention and I
set it right there. Now it's at about a
hundred and two and I wanted to go back
to exactly a hundred kilometers an hour
which is 62 miles an hour,
I just hit the deceleration button--I
click it two times
and it will decelerate one kilometer per
hour or one mile per hour, depending on
which country you're in, for every time
you click it. It's the same with the
acceleration, if I wanted the speed to go up one
kilometer an hour--one mile an hour--I
simply click the acceleration button two,
three times and as you can see here,
every time I click it it goes up one
kilometers an hour. So now I'm doing
approximately one hundred five kilometers an
hour.
Same thing with the deceleration - if I
click that--every time I click it, it goes
down one mile per hour
and it works the same on every cruise
control, whether it's on a car or bus or
light truck or a big truck - a commercial
vehicle. All of the cruise controls work
the same. Every time you click that, it
will go up one mile an hour or one
kilometer an hour. Now the other thing
about the cruise control: if you're driving a
manual transmission, as soon as you touch
the clutch the cruise control will
disengage. So I just touched the clutch and
you can see that it starts to decelerate
because I have disengaged the
cruise control by touching the clutch. Now if I push resume the vehicle will
go back to the set speed that I had it
at previously, which was a hundred
kilometers an hour. Now it'll climb back
up to 100 kilometers an hour. Not very
quickly in this vehicle - the little
four-cylinder and we're on a bit of a
hill here, but it will climb back up
to 100 kilometers an hour. As well, if you're
driving an automatic vehicle and you touch
the brake and make a brake application,
it will again disengaged the cruise
control - so it will disengage, So the cruise control is
connected to the pedals. And then you
just hit resume. Now the other time that
you hit resume: as if you come into a
town or whatnot and you touch the brake
it will disengage--or the clutch--you meander
through town and you come out the other
side and you want to reset it again. Just
bring your
speed back up to around where you had it
previously and then hit the resume again
and it will resume again. So that's how
you use cruise control. And as I said
cruise control on all vehicles is
essentially the same, it has three
buttons: 1) an on/off switch; 2) set; 3) resume -
accelerate, decelerate and often the set
and
resume button are the
decelerate and the accelerate button. Some
cruise control units will have a cancel button.
The cancel button is rare and probably found on newer vehicles.
Quick review of cruise control.
All cruise controls have three buttons:
they have an 1) on/off switch; 2) they have a
resume switch; 3) and they have a 'Set' switch.
the 'Set' switch is also the deceleration
button, and the resume button is also the
acceleration button. The deceleration and
accelerate button - if you hold either one
of those - for as long as you hold them
and you have the cruise control set, it will either
accelerate or decelerate the vehicle. If
you click one of those buttons, however
many times you click it,
the vehicle will accelerate or
decelerate the number of miles per hour
or km/h that you have clicked the button.
As well, if you touch the brake or touch
the clutch--if you're driving a manual
transmission--while the vehicle is on
cruise cruise, it will automatically disengage the cruise control.
So know that. Know that if you use the
throttle and you accelerate and pass
another vehicle, for example, that the
cruise control will not disengage when you use
the accelerator. So if you let off the
throttle, it'll go back to the set speed
that you had previously. For example, if
you're driving on the freeway at 60
miles per hour and you accelerate past
another vehicle at 70 mph, as soon as you let
your foot off the throttle and you
haven't canceled the cruise using the
buttons, then the vehicle will go back to
the set speed of 60 miles an hour. So
just keep that in mind when you're using
cruise control. Three benefits to using
cruise control: 1) increased fuel economy,
and again that is going to be negated
if you're accelerating all the time to
pass other vehicles on a multi-lane roads. Just
leave it on cruise--so long as vehicles are
piled up behind you, you can just leave
it on cruise, go out into the passing
lane, pass another vehicle and then move
back over into the driving lane. For
those of us that drive on the right hand
side of the road, we're going to move
back to the right; for those of you who
drive on the left--in Australia & the UK (United Kingdom) you're going
to move back over to the left lane. 2) As
well, on longer trips the cruise control is going to reduce
fatigue and stress because you're not
using having aggressive use of the
primary controls all the time. When you arrive you're going to
be nice and relaxed. And when you get
there at the end of the day, you're not
going to need a massage, and you're not
going to need a psychologist. 3) And finally,
cruise control reduces distracted
driving because you're not monitoring
your speed all the time. And the
key technique to using cruise control
successfully - set it a couple of
kilometers--a couple of miles an hour--
less than the traffic flow. That way
you're not running up on traffic all the
time. And that is the key to using cruise
control successfully. A question for my
smart drivers: do you use cruise control? Do you
use it a little bit; do you use it every now and
again? Do you use it you know... whenever
you get out on the highway, or do you use
it a lot - your kind of an obsessive
user like I am? Leave a comment down in
the comment section there. All that
helps out the new drivers learning how
to better operate the controls on their
vehicle after getting your license.
I'm Rick with Smart Drive Test - thanks
very much for watching. If you like what
you see here share, subscribe, leave a
comment down in the comment section. As
well, hit that thumbs up button. Check out all
the videos here on the channel if you're
working towards a license or starting a
career as a truck or bus driver. Lots of
great information. Stick around to the
end of the video - some funny stuff and
all the links to the other videos and
the link to my website where you'll find
more great information. Thanks again for
watching, good luck on your road test. And
remember, pick the best answer not
necessarily the right answer.
Have a great day. Bye now.
Just give that a quick
teeeeeeesssssst before I carry on. Take three of the
cruise control video conclusion. The
first was dark and the second one was
out of focus. [AHHHHHHHHHHHH - FRUSTRATED]
So we're doing it in the studio!!!
[CLOSING CREDTIS & MUSIC]