Why Your New Car's Safety Features Keep Resetting (and What You Can Do About It)
The "On Again, Off Again" Frustration: Why Your Car's Safety Settings Don't Stick
You've just bought a shiny new car, perhaps even one equipped with the latest bells and whistles in driver assistance. You meticulously adjust your preferences: maybe you dial down the sensitivity of the lane-keeping assist or disable the chime for speed limit warnings. You park, ready for your next journey… only to find all those settings have reverted to their defaults the moment you restart the engine. Sound familiar?
You're not alone. This isn't a glitch, nor is your car intentionally trying to annoy you. It's a legal mandate, largely driven by the General Safety Regulation 2 (GSR2) in Europe, which significantly impacts vehicles sold globally, including the UK and beyond.
GSR2: The Law Behind the Reset Button
Implemented in stages and fully mandatory for all new car registrations since July 2024, GSR2 (specifically EU 2019/2144 and related UN regulations) requires certain critical safety features to be active by default every time you start your vehicle. The reasoning is clear: these systems are designed to save lives and prevent accidents, so the law dictates they should always be "on" unless the driver explicitly chooses to disable them for that particular journey.
Key Safety Features That Must Reset to "ON"
Here are the primary culprits behind those frustrating resets:
Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA): This system warns you if you exceed the detected speed limit via visual cues, audio chimes, or haptic feedback like pedal vibration. To encourage compliance, the law requires it to reactivate every time the engine starts.
Emergency Lane Keeping (ELK) / Lane Assist: These systems actively steer the car back into its lane if they detect unintentional drift. Because they are classified as life-saving equipment, they must default to "on."
Advanced Emergency Braking (AEB): AEB automatically applies the brakes if it detects an imminent collision with another vehicle, pedestrian, or cyclist. It is considered a foundational safety technology and cannot be permanently disabled.
Driver Drowsiness & Attention Warning (DDAW): By monitoring steering patterns or eye movements, this system alerts you to fatigue. To ensure drivers stay alert, the system resets to active for every trip.
What Your Car Can Remember (and What It Can't)
While the "life-saving" features are legally bound to reset, your car can still remember many of your other personal preferences.
What Your Car Can Remember: Adaptive Cruise Control distances, infotainment settings (radio, navigation preferences), climate control settings, and seat/mirror positions—often tied to your individual driver profile.
What Your Car Cannot Remember: Any preference to keep ISA, ELK, AEB, or DDAW in the "off" position.
The "Shortcut" Solution: A Glimmer of Hope for Drivers
Car manufacturers are aware of driver frustration. While they cannot legally make these features stay off, some are finding clever ways to make the "disable" process less cumbersome for those who prefer a more manual driving experience.
Many brands, such as Renault and Porsche, have introduced "Custom Safety" buttons. These allow you to pre-program a group of settings—for example, turning off the speed chime and reducing Lane Assist intensity—which can then be activated with just one or two button presses after you start the car.
Looking Ahead: Better Menus, Not Fewer Features
As we move through 2026, safety organizations like Euro NCAP are actually starting to penalize cars that hide these settings deep within complex touchscreen menus. The goal is to ensure that if a driver does want to adjust a setting, they can do so quickly and safely without taking their eyes off the road for too long.
So, while the "reset" is here to stay, the way we interact with these systems is becoming more intuitive.