Its compactness came in handy again a few weeks later when we took a brief sojourn to the Kent coast and were staying on an unpaved lane, down which many people fled when the sun came out. Parallel parking was easy and the relative narrowness of the LBX made me feel more comfortable about other cars bumbling past.
We’re a small family, but on both trips there was plenty of space with all the luggage. There’s even a small bike underneath all that stuff you can see in the boot (above).
Naturally, a car of this size is more targeted towards urban driving, but as I’m racking up the miles with some farther-flung exploits, the LBX is remaining a likeable proposition.
Update 3
In the early days of my LBX testing, I was frustrated by its advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) but not sure of how fair this reaction was.
Coincidentally, during this time I overheard a colleague berating the LBX’s systems. “Well, it’s not just me,” I thought and interjected to compare notes. He said the only brand worse in this regard was Kia.
I haven’t driven a Kia for a little while, but a previous Matt Prior column (29 May), which described an otherwise well-liked EV9 autonomously performing an emergency stop for no clear reason, makes that claim pretty credible.
I try to embrace ADAS and often coexist with the more common ones without comment. After all, they’re created not to irk us but to make us safer on the road. Of course, the argument is that they sometimes do quite the opposite.
The LBX uses what Lexus calls the Lexus Safety System Plus, which includes a Pre-Collision System with Intersection Turn Assist, Dynamic Radar Cruise Control, Lane Tracing Assist/Lane Keep Assist and Road Sign Assist.
