Cupra Leon 300

The good and the bad of driver assistance technology

DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THE DUTCH Reach? No, nothing to do with Mark Rutte’s followers on Instagram. Nor is it anything smutty. Instead it has everything to do with Rule 239 of the newly revised Highway Code that came into effect at the end of January. But the Leon was ahead of the game.

Much of the new technology on the Cupra (I nearly wrote SEAT and I confess I still say SEAT half the time, but you won’t find a single mention of Cupra at seat.co.uk, not even in the small print) is annoying or just plain bad. For example, there’s the Lane Keep Assist that has tried to steer me into oncoming traffic on a country road. Or there’s the Front Assist emergency braking that has tried to send me through the windscreen, despite me merely driving down an empty multi-storey car park exit ramp at the time. Neither technology, I should add, is the exclusive preserve of S… Cupra.

Exit Warning, however, is good. Park up at the side of the road, carelessly go to open the door and the blind spot warning light will flash and klaxons will sound if there is something approaching from behind. Buster Keaton wouldn’t approve, but cyclists everywhere will.

The low-tech version, now enshrined in the Highway Code, is the Dutch Reach, so called because it originated in the cycling-centric country of Holland. It requires driver or passenger to use their inside hand (so the driver of a righthand-drive car would use their left hand) to open a car door. This swivels your body round for better visibility and also means you can’t open the door wide quickly. Far from foolproof but, like Exit Warning, seems sensible to me.

Date acquired July 2021 Total mileage 9616 Mileage this month 1107 Costs this month £0 mpg this month 28.6