[AP]

Travelling along the M4 in the UK tonight at dusk, approaching the M25 turn off. I'm in lane 1 and the motorway signs are indicating a 40mph speed limit.
My Real time traffic information is showing green lanes ahead except for a small yellow section just ahead of the M25 indicating slower moving traffic.
I always keep a good distance between myself and the car ahead (only a fool breaks the 2 second rule) and had the active cruise control engaged slowing teh speed down to 40mph and with the distance set to the 4 bars (to keep a good distance)
A car in lane 2 indicates left to pull in front of me cutting my braking distance to be far to small so I start to apply the brakes to give me some breathing space , that disenages the ACC , that car then 'stamps' on the brakes . I get a car symbol appear on my Head up display as I apply the brakes heavily activating the ABS. No doubt my brake force display was flashing to the car behind me.
I came to a stop and looked in my rear view mirror waiting for the bang. I could see the car behind had pitched forward heavily braking and he was then in turn hit from behind.
Up ahead had been a similar accident so there were 4 cards on the hard shoulder with rear end collissions.
Glad my car didn't caught up any of this. Impact speeds were low so looked like no one hurt.

Straight afterwards I thought about the amount of technology that was present in this scenario. Wouldn't have necessailry stopped me being hit but nice all the same!

RTTI warns about the slower traffic ahead.
Forward collission alert alerts me via the Head up display about the car in front and primes the braking system.
Antilock brakes stop me without skidding
Brake force display warns the drivers behind I'm making an emergency stop.

[OzDriver]

A good example of why the "toys" are put in these cars in the first place

[BMWrules7]

Originally Posted by AP

Travelling along the M4 in the UK tonight at dusk, approaching the M25 turn off. I'm in lane 1 and the motorway signs are indicating a 40mph speed limit.
My Real time traffic information is showing green lanes ahead except for a small yellow section just ahead of the M25 indicating slower moving traffic.
I always keep a good distance between myself and the car ahead (only a fool breaks the 2 second rule) and had the active cruise control engaged slowing teh speed down to 40mph and with the distance set to the 4 bars (to keep a good distance)
A car in lane 2 indicates left to pull in front of me cutting my braking distance to be far to small so I start to apply the brakes to give me some breathing space , that disenages the ACC , that car then 'stamps' on the brakes . I get a car symbol appear on my Head up display as I apply the brakes heavily activating the ABS. No doubt my brake force display was flashing to the car behind me.
I came to a stop and looked in my rear view mirror waiting for the bang. I could see the car behind had pitched forward heavily braking and he was then in turn hit from behind.
Up ahead had been a similar accident so there were 4 cards on the hard shoulder with rear end collissions.
Glad my car didn't caught up any of this. Impact speeds were low so looked like no one hurt.

Straight afterwards I thought about the amount of technology that was present in this scenario. Wouldn't have necessailry stopped me being hit but nice all the same!

RTTI warns about the slower traffic ahead.
Forward collission alert alerts me via the Head up display about the car in front and primes the braking system.
Antilock brakes stop me without skidding
Brake force display warns the drivers behind I'm making an emergency stop.

Don't forget, your brakes were primed when the collision detection presented the red car. Even a light tap of the brakes, whenever the red car collision detect is displayed, will apply near full brake force.

[bm323]

No ill will intended; would it have been sufficient if your car did not brake so heavily, minimising the risk of the rear collisions (and of course, avoiding any frontal damage to your car)?

[AP]

I did the braking in this particular occurence as I was slowing down to give me some braking distance which as it happened, I actually required.
The fact that the red car was showing on my HUD also explains why the car stopped so quickly . I stopped with about a 10 feet gap in front of me.

Perhaps in an ideal world , that would be ideal to only stop enough rather than applying full braking force allowing cars behind more space to stop. (Does the new S-Class do this - I thought I read somewhere it can do this?)

However in this case, it was just a natural reaction to apply the maximum.
I think if i had left it the braking to the car, I would probably have hit the car in front. My understanding is that the forward collision alert feature will not necessarily stop you hitting the car in front but aims to reduce the speed of the impact and potential injuries.Perhaps future versions will upgrade that capability. (Volvos do this now at low speeds and will aim to stop hitting an object)

I'm sure the guy behind me had "brown trousers" afterwards. I know it made my heart beat faster for sure.

The one thing to learn out of this is to make sure you keep your distance from the car in front as the unexpected can sometime happen. Whilst in this case the speeds were low so injuries would not have been expected (except perhaps whiplash) but like others here, would hate to have had my beloved 5 series damaged along with all the hassle that goes along with an accident.

[MPH]

Slightly different scenario. Pulling onto the M4 this morning in the dark and indicated to pull into middle lane. As I started to pull across, steering wheel vibrates heavily and triangle flashes on mirror. Naturally I rapidly pull back into my lane. Some idiot had come in from the outside lane to do a bit of undertaking. To make life more interesting he's on side lights so he's barely visible. But thanks to BMW blind spot monitoring system I was saved from what could have been a nasty accident!

[AP]

perhaps more people coule write in with incidents where BMW technology has either saved their lives or prevented an accident.
haven't got blind spot monitoring system on my car but sounds useful. you only have to get one 'use' out of it and its already paid for itself.

Driving along with sidelights is a bit of an annoying thing to me - I know its legal in street lit roads in the Uk but its frankly a waste of time and makes no difference to a cars visibility - I really don't get how people think it does!

[SomeRandomer123]

Not a 5 Series, but...

In the E90 330d. Having the 30d meant the uprated big brakes and my 189's meant big fat 255's on the back . On that dual carriage way through Towchester (as if towards Silverstone - M42 I think but can't remember) I was in the outside lane doing about 80mph and a van in the left lane about 5 car lengths ahead probably doing about 65-70mph so I was going for a normal pass.

ALL OF A SUDDEN (might as well insert some drama, eh?) a lorry in the left layby just pulled out without getting up to any speed or seeing what was behind him, so this blocked the path of the van that was far too close to stop in time, so seeing this, I came off the accelerator rapidly, which primed the brakes for an emergency stop as the van reluctantly swerved into my lane.

I hit the already eager brakes, the flashing emergency stop brake lights must've been going like the clappers to warn the drivers behind, although gladly they were in the distance and f**k me did the car stop!! So thanks to the anticipating brakes and the sheer size of them, I avoided what could've been a hefty shunt!

One thing BMW's do, which isn't mentioned often, is stop like hell when they need to!

Not a 5er again, but...

In my F30 328i on a 30mph road, I was doing about 30, give or take 1mph and hidden behind parked cars is a lolly pop man (I don't know if that means anything to the American's and I don't know what the US equivilant is, so a person who helps people cross the road). Anyway, without warning, the tw@ walks out into the road without raising his lolly-pop or even looking in my direction so, like the E90, the brakes were primed and oh boy did the F30 stop! Again, bigger brakes in the UK on the 28i than standard and 255's on the back once more because of my mixed 398's. The secondary emergency brake lights were definitely shown as the ABS did it's job to bring the car to a grinding halt to avoid this knob of a lolly-pop man. Thankfully nothing behind that was too close. But being a warm day, I had my window down and as the car was tearing my face off with violent deceleration, the window shot up and the hazard lights were deployed once stationary.

Clever tech and good mechanical stuff to keep you and others more safe on the road

The lolly-pop man waved in an apologetic manner. I assume he will need new undies though