NHTSA complaint #11499719

Owner complaint summary

The system designed to prevent lane departure has a particular issue with the dashed road markings that denote the entrance to tapered deceleration lanes or right-hand exit ramps on Oregon freeways. I have not noticed an issue when similar markings are on the driver's side. In particular, the in section 360, figure 360-A of the ODOT Traffic Line Manual (https://www.oregon.gov/odot/Engineering/Documents_TrafficStandards/Traffic-Line-Manual.pdf) the line marked "WD" is consistently able to fool the lane departure system and allow the vehicle to drift or steer toward the "Physical Gore Point" as shown in the figure. On November 11th, 2022, I very briefly took my hands off the steering wheel to unscrew the cap on my water bottle while lane centering was activated on the lane departure avoidance system and the vehicle steered to the right without warning while passing an exit lane having the "WD" markings. This nearly resulted in my Highlander leaving the road at freeway speeds. Now, I understand this is not responsible behavior on my part, but these things occur, and it may result in accident or death in the future if it hasn't already. The system is otherwise quite reliable. However, I was previously aware of the issue as it has happened for as long as I've owned the vehicle. This is the first time it nearly caused an incident because I normally do not remove my hands from the steering wheel completely and can correct the steering manually. No warning lamps or messages were observed, but the lane departure warning may have sounded after passing the "WD" markings. The issue has not been reproduced by any service center on my vehicle, nor has it been inspected by another party. On carcomplaints.com another Oregon resident mentioned a similar issue as an additional note about an unrelated braking issue: https://www.carcomplaints.com/Toyota/Highlander/2022/brakes/service_brakes.shtml I would be willing to make the vehicle available for testing/inspection.