Why did my emergency braking system trigger for no reason?

I was driving at 60mph on an A-road, the vehicle in front was 150 yds ahead also doing 60mph. Suddenly without any warning the emergency braking warning light flashed on, the sound bleeped and the brakes slammed on. The car instantly lost 10mph without I touched the brakes. Fortunately the following vehicle was at least 200yds away. There were no cyclists or pedestrians on the road and I was unaware of any animals in the road. The car is 14 months old with less than 5000 miles on the clock and had its annual service without any faults reported. Have any other readers had issues with these emergency braking systems?

Asked on 30 July 2025 by John Woodcock

Answered by David Ross

Autonomous Emergency Braking systems have been known to be triggered in error, and could be caused by debris in the road or a shadow, dirt blocking the operation of the sensors or a fault with the calibration of the system. While it can be irritating or even alarming, a system that is overly sensitive is more use than one which is not sensitive enough, as the latter could fail to operate in a genuine emergency situation. Keeping any bumper or windscreen-mounted sensors as clean as possible is one step you can take and you can enquire with your dealer about having the system recallibrated.

Tags: driving automatic emergency braking

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