Dellortoman
Hero member
- Location
- Tasmania, Australia
Mr Sock posted a joke (in the "This week's joke" thread) about too many gadgets in new cars. That's a subject I've been thinking about a bit lately and I don't like the way it's going in new cars. Rather than post a non jocular response in the joke thread, I figured I'd start a new thread because I'm interested in what people think of so-called "driver aids" in both cars and motorcycles.
Personally, I dislike pretty much all of the smart gadgets in cars from benign things like automatic windscreen wipers and headlights, to intrusive things that actually take over control of the vehicle like lane assist. That's one of the reasons I drive an older car and probably won't update it in the time I have left in my life as a driver.
My car (Mitsubishi Delica) doesn't have anything resembling driver aids. It doesn't even have automatic transmission. It only has stuff like chimes that "ping ping" or squeal if I leave the key in the ignition switch or the headlights on when I open the door. They're annoying enough but not so much that I've gone to the trouble of disabling them. One automatic function I have modified is the control of the glow plugs. They're needed for cold starting, but the inbuilt timer kept them on for way too long, like 10 minutes or so until the engine warms up. That's way too long and it was regularly burning out plugs. I was replacing one or more glow plugs every couple of months. You can switch them off immediately after the engine has started and it'll keep running just fine. So I wired in a beeper to tell me when they're on and a manual override to switch them off. That was about 5 years ago and I haven't had a burned out plug since.
My car doesn't even have ABS, but I know how to control an emergency stop all by myself. I also drive defensively enough that situations where I need to do a panic stop are vanishingly rare.
I keep my car well maintained so it's as safe as it can be for myself, my passengers and other road users. I haven't had so much as a fender bender in about 30 years so I consider myself a reasonably safe driver without fancy driver aids. Incidentally, I think motorcyclists make much safer car drivers than non motorcyclists because they maintain much better awareness of what's going on around them than the average car driver. A motorcyclist who isn't in the habit of being hyper-aware isn't going to live very long.
I don't need lane assist or automatic braking because I pay attention and look where I'm going. If I get tired and my concentration suffers, I'll take a break.
One of the reasons I got rid of my 2010 Ducati Multistrada was that it was making too many decisions for me that I didn't want it to make, and in some cases was unaware of until it became an unwelcome intrusion into my riding experience.
I came across this video by D4A the other day that is relevant to the "too many gadgets in new cars" theme. He has an interesting take on the subject. He reckons it's the thin end of the wedge to take away the ability for humans to control their own lives. I quite like his videos because he seems to be an intelligent guy, a good communicator, and he researches his subjects well.
Personally, I dislike pretty much all of the smart gadgets in cars from benign things like automatic windscreen wipers and headlights, to intrusive things that actually take over control of the vehicle like lane assist. That's one of the reasons I drive an older car and probably won't update it in the time I have left in my life as a driver.
My car (Mitsubishi Delica) doesn't have anything resembling driver aids. It doesn't even have automatic transmission. It only has stuff like chimes that "ping ping" or squeal if I leave the key in the ignition switch or the headlights on when I open the door. They're annoying enough but not so much that I've gone to the trouble of disabling them. One automatic function I have modified is the control of the glow plugs. They're needed for cold starting, but the inbuilt timer kept them on for way too long, like 10 minutes or so until the engine warms up. That's way too long and it was regularly burning out plugs. I was replacing one or more glow plugs every couple of months. You can switch them off immediately after the engine has started and it'll keep running just fine. So I wired in a beeper to tell me when they're on and a manual override to switch them off. That was about 5 years ago and I haven't had a burned out plug since.
My car doesn't even have ABS, but I know how to control an emergency stop all by myself. I also drive defensively enough that situations where I need to do a panic stop are vanishingly rare.
I keep my car well maintained so it's as safe as it can be for myself, my passengers and other road users. I haven't had so much as a fender bender in about 30 years so I consider myself a reasonably safe driver without fancy driver aids. Incidentally, I think motorcyclists make much safer car drivers than non motorcyclists because they maintain much better awareness of what's going on around them than the average car driver. A motorcyclist who isn't in the habit of being hyper-aware isn't going to live very long.
I don't need lane assist or automatic braking because I pay attention and look where I'm going. If I get tired and my concentration suffers, I'll take a break.
One of the reasons I got rid of my 2010 Ducati Multistrada was that it was making too many decisions for me that I didn't want it to make, and in some cases was unaware of until it became an unwelcome intrusion into my riding experience.
I came across this video by D4A the other day that is relevant to the "too many gadgets in new cars" theme. He has an interesting take on the subject. He reckons it's the thin end of the wedge to take away the ability for humans to control their own lives. I quite like his videos because he seems to be an intelligent guy, a good communicator, and he researches his subjects well.
(Greetings from Wales)