Abstract: There is provided an adaptive cruise control method for autonomously adapting the speed of an ego vehicle (300) to maintain a target headway, headway being distance from the ego vehicle to a forward vehicle (302), the ego vehicle equipped with a perception system (100) for measuring a current headway and a current speed and acceleration of the forward vehicle relative to ego vehicle, the method comprising: in response to detecting that the current headway is below the target headway, determining and implementing a deceleration strategy for increasing to the target headway; wherein the deceleration strategy is determined so as to selectively optimize for comfort in dependence on a predicted headway, the predicted headway computed for a future time instant based on the current speed and acceleration of the forward vehicle relative to the ego vehicle.