Recent incident. A friend was driving one of my Mercedes E-300s. At dinner she was telling me about her day and mentioned while driving, the proximity warnings went off and she saw the large truck in front of her came to an abrupt stop so she slammed on the brakes and barely avoided running into the truck.
I asked her if she noticed if the automatic braking activated before she could apply the brakes but she didn’t notice as she was too panicked. Based on how she described the event, I am certain she avoided a collision because of the automatic braking. The proximity warnings only go off when within a very short stopping distance of an object.
I told her the little bit extra I pay for having a car like that just paid for itself by avoiding an accident. I didn’t mention it wasn’t the first time the technology in the car helped her avoid an accident.
I loaned one of my low-mileage 6.9s to my nephew who was in the military, for local driving on a weekend. He decided, without telling me, to drive it 500 miles north to see a girlfriend. Was fiddling with some jury-rigged portable sound system he put in it and crashed into the back of a pickup truck. Over $5,000 in damage to an immaculate, no accidents, collector car, all above the front bumper.