So after looking through the owners manual, I was surprised to see a lot of sophisticated safety features not really touted in the general description of the car or even really mentioned when speccing the car out.

The Intelligent Safety features, are pretty advanced stuff, and I paid a pretty penny to have that equipped on my 2012 5 series. Wonder why they don't call it out more. Aside from maybe a back up camera though, the biggest safety feature IMO that I have grown very used to is blind spot detection. Why they didn't include that over the automated parking feature I am not sure. Seems like with all the sensors on the car, it wouldn't have been much to add it.

 

IMO on this particular car a blind spot indicator doesn't serve a big purpose. At least not for me. There is SO much visibility left, right and rear that I'm still looking for an obvious blind spot. Same rear why I didn't get the backup camera. With a car this small with the huge visibility (and with rear park sensors as another more inexpensive option) I didn't think the camera was necessary. I hear what you're say, though. Blind spot indicators are becoming more and more common on cars and many really want them, no matter how small the car is nor how much visibility the driver has all around.

 

The lack of blindspots is kind of irrelevant though isn't it? I always thought the idea was to warn you for the times when you just weren't paying enough attention. IMHO they should be standard on every car.

 

Unfortunately, it seems that the "Driver assistance" package (BMW) doesn't seem to be offered on Mini in the US. Looking at the owners manual, it shows the same features as I have on my F30, minus the top/side cams. Wonder why this isn't being offered in the US?