The Active Lane Control on the Infiniti Q50 is good. Like, really good. But testing it on the highway by getting out of the driver's seat and into the back is stupid. Like, really, truly, epically stupid.
It's one thing to tape a can to the steering wheel of an S-Class to defeat the sensor that detects your hand and disables the lane assist. It's another to force the self-parking button on an i3 to slide into a space without a driver. But when some lifestyle hack wanted to test the outer limited of Infiniti's semiautonomous driving system, the result is butt-puckeringly cringe worthy.
What's slightly surprising – aside from the fact this tool didn't wreck and take out a school bus in the process – is that the seatbelt or airbag sensor wasn't tied into the Active Lane Control. Sure, this is an asinine edge case, but given the potentially litigious nature of these systems, some kind of failsafe seems like a no-brainer. And considering we're on the precipice of a massive legal debate about the safety and liability of self-driving systems, this is the kind of idiotic stunt scaremongering legislators would love to trot out.