Ford Galaxy a family car that’s out of this world
Many of these largely electronic aids are worthy and indeed welcome additions to the armoury of kit which is designed to protect us not only from other errant motorists, but from ourselves as well.
Some, however, are deeply intrusive and in certain cases remove from the driver the ability to take rational decisions based on your on-road experience and understanding of how certain potentially dangerous situations may or may not pan out.
I have found myself in unwelcome circumstances where my ability to control a car in a tight spot was almost completely removed by electronic gadgetry which decides it knows better than I do. That, believe me, is not a scenario I am terribly comfortable with as it is my firm belief that the best person to make critical decisions at perilous moments is the one behind the wheel.
I know there are different levels of capability in this regard and that not all drivers will be able to react appropriately and decisively in a situation which might have the potential to be life-threatening, but my own experience is that my personal reactions and decisions are, by and large, better than those of a bunch of sensors somewhere in the front bumper.
I had an incident last year while driving some sort of Golf where I was coming out of a West Cork town which has a tricky crossroads just outside its boundaries and the person in front of me suddenly and unexpectedly braked and made a left turn.
In fairness I was probably a little on the close side to the car in front, but I was comfortable enough to just ease on the brakes and, having established the road ahead to be clear, made to manoeuvre around the turning car.
Instead, the car itself chose to deploy emergency braking and several alarming vehicle-proximity warnings started flashing and beeping. What annoyed me about this was that I had the situation firmly under control and yet the car decided otherwise. What also worried me was that if I had another car close behind me, the driver would have had little or no time to react before rear-ending me.
I come to this subject by way of this week’s test of the new Ford Galaxy which, in titanium trim and with some specification additions, is positively bristling with safety kit such as a collision-avoidance system, front cameras, a lane-keeping aid, and a traffic-sign recognition system.
Going through these in the order above, I found the collision-avoidance system to be a complete nuisance when driving around town, in particular. In traffic it was constantly squawking and flashing eyeline-mounted red lights, and, more often than not, for no apparent reason. It was far too sensitive and terribly annoying.
The front cameras were very good in parking situations, although the Galaxy had also got an automated parking system, which sort of obviated the need for the cameras. in the first place.
The lane-keeping aid is a help when you’re on long motorway journeys, but a total pain in the butt on B-roads where you will, by design or otherwise, cut corners and straighten kinks, setting off an annoying juddering in the steering wheel designed to alert you to where you are on the road.
The sign-recognition system is neat, but I’d be of the opinion that if you need the car to tell you what speed limit you should be adhering to, then you shouldn’t be driving in the first place or are in need of a visit to the opticians.
These aids aside, what really intrigued me was the adaptive cruise control system with intelligent speed limiter, which is essentially designed to make motorway driving a steering-only job as the rest of the functions — speeding up, slowing down, and taking cognisance of traffic — are all done by the car itself.
Taking advantage of a Christmas trip from Cork to Dublin and back, I decided to see how the system works in real life, particularly as the theoretical element often looks good potentially, but is not so in reality.
Aside from some minor reservations, I was completely open-minded about how the car would perform and, having tried it out, was pretty impressed, all told.
Certainly the system — whereby you turn on the cruise control, set the speed you want to travel at, and simply let the car off to its own devices — is nothing like as intuitive as having a person doing the controlling, but it is pretty good nonetheless. It will detect a slower vehicle ahead of you, in the same lane you’re in — at between 50m and 80m — and either simply eases off on the accelerator or, if the car ahead is going terribly slowly, apply the brakes.
It will slow you to the speed of the vehicle ahead and keep you a set distance behind it until that car changes lane. The electronics will then, having ascertained the road ahead to be clear, accelerate you back up to whatever speed you had originally set.
I did try and throw a few curveballs at the system and tried to get it out of its comfort zone, but in truth I could find few holes in the operational capacity of its’ abilities and found it to be pretty much bulletproof and, more importantly, idiot proof.
That made it, in my view, a very acceptable and very helpful driver aid and one which did actually make the job easier without frightening the life out of you as well. It’s a pity some of the other systems are not as competent.
And what of the rest of the Galaxy? Well, Ford’s big family car is very good to drive, has loads of practicality, and, in the case of the tester, fitted with the excellent 180 bhp version of the ubiquitous 2.0 TDCi turbodiesel and a six-speed manual box. Seven slide and fold seats, bags of cubbies and storage spots, high driving position, and excellent connectivity all add greatly to the deal.
Aside from liking the car for itself, I ended up being terribly impressed by at least one of the new raft of safety devices which are currently filtering down into normal cars, having previously only been seen in very expensive ones.
Some of these things are, as I said at the outset, terribly intrusive and off-putting, and not particularly conducive to good driving. Unless you’re a complete dolt, they don’t do much for safety either.
Others, thankfully, are very handy indeed.
COLLEY'S VERDICT
The Car: Ford Galaxy
The Cost: Titanium model from €46,835 -€57,755 as tested.
The Engine: Excellently powerful and economic two-litre turbodiesel.
The Specification: Very comprehensive indeed.
The Overall Verdict: A fantastic family car with some interesting — and useful — technologies.
