It occured to me today while watching one of the many car commercials, they urge you to abdicate the responsibilities of being an attentive driver. How about just driving the damn car with nothing to distract? I am concerned that once the car starts to make your choices for you, you will have a level of comfort that brings defensive driving skills way down. If as a driver you simply become a passenger, it is asking for bad things to happen. When your vehicle takes over emergency responses, how long will it be before you are rear ended by a driver who is paying attention but does not expect a panic stop by a car in front of them for no apparent reason? Driving a car should be harder not easier for a driver. I like the laws in Japan that make the driver responsible for any collision, and requires a difficult process to secure a license, this in a country that traffic moves at a snails pace. Here, a passing score on your third written test, and a driving test through a roundabout will do it! Washington State has some of the worst drivers I have ever encountered in now 53 years of driving and yet they crack down on the single drivers in the HOV lanes not the dangerous ones. WOW what a spectacular failure!

My El Camino has windup windows, an Am-Fm stereo, and now is devoid of cruise control; lockup torque C; and anything that requires a solenoid or relay to operate other than lights and starter. It doesn't have power door locks but I'm guessing mine will still be working the same in 10 more years, while the 2019 cars are stopped beside the road waiting for a technician, not a mechanic! Just a passing observation, but the cars of today for the most part have not made a significant improvement in MPG for the amount of money they have cost to develop, and expensive parts and programs necessary to move the mileage up. My El Camino with a 231 V6 got 20 - 24 MPG on the highway and there are not that many similar vehicles today doing much better. Okay they are probably pumping different crap into the atmosphere than mine will, but the technology is there to get nearly 50 mpg without electric motors and they have chosen not to. What did a new El Camino cost in 1980? $6K . What is the cheapest pickup you can buy today with all the new technology to get it uhhhhhh 20 MPG, $20,500 Colorado. The inflation factor would put the El Camino today at $17,300...So where did the extra $3200 get dialed in??? The Colorado gets 18 mpg city, and 25 mpg highway or combined 20mpg! All the costs and all the technology and the new V-6 does no better than the 1980 one! I think I'll just drive the El Camino. It placed its carbon footprint in the last century! We'll see which is on the road in 2034 still!

 

I agree with just about everything you said. Except - the worst freaking drivers are in Texas....... OMG!

 

Preaching to the choir.

 

They may have something in common Randy, ours are transplanted Californians in the 80's and TX is the favorite spot for those fleeing CA today! It's just a THEORY...but it does hold water!

 

They are playing to the 50% of people who drive cars with automatic driving aids and have said the aids have helped them avoid accidents. Now that is to say that each driving aid gets about that percentage. The first thing I thought when I saw those percentages was that these people must be incredibly bad (or inattentive) drivers and there must a a lot of them out there for that percentage to be so high.

I've had a license since the 1950s and have never been in an accident. I imagine many of those on this site can make a similar statement.

When I taught my children to drive, I stressed the same as I was taught in Driver's Ed---look ahead for problems and always have a way out. The youngest of the three has had her license for 30 years and none of them have had accidents.

Sadly, there appear to be fewer of us attentive types left.

 

We pay for it one way or the other but like you I taught Driver's Ed. Both accidents I was in were due to inattentive drivers; the 2nd of which totalled my restored 67 442 with a bent frame. The young man was under his dash looking for a cassette. I was stopped waiting to turn into my driveway on my once a week drive around town and park it in the Summer. I never got over losing that one!

 

I have been driving since the 1960's and when we were in "driver's training class", it was partially referred to as defensive driving. Always position your vehicle so you had an "option" (to avoid an accident). My father taught me to ride motorcycles using the same principles.
I have had three accidents in my life. One was my 1965 4-4-2 taking the door off a car that the driver opened his door,with no time to change lanes. #2 was when I was stopped at a lighted intersection for a traffic light and was rear ended. #3 rear ended by a pick up towing a boat on the freeway.

 

Today's auto ads kill me. What is important to today's consumer? The best wifi connection? A car that will parallel park itself? Or is it just a warm and fuzzy feeling you get from your Subaru suv? No It's probably the cute chipmunks who ride around in that weird looking boxy car. I remember when consumers would choose between a car's horsepower,performance, or maybe load capacity, etc.

 

Modern cars are so convenient that they have desensitized the driving experience as much as 70s luxo barges desensitized steering when compared to a European sports car.

 

Advertising often misses the mark with the message but hits the entertainment genes. I hope people do buy cars for all the wrong reasons...it is in a way a thinning of the herd!

 

The FAA has shown repeatedly that overreliance on autopilot functions has caused a dramatic reduction in commercial pilot skills. Of course, the time you need that skill the most is during an emergency when the autopilot can't be used.

It's an order of magnitude worse in cars. US drivers just suck as it is. Compound this with assisted driving where the driver has no involvement until there's an emergency? Yeah, that'll end well...

Unless the car is 100% autonomous with zero driver involvement required ever, these systems should be banned. But hey, our elected officials are too stupid to realize this.

 

The commercial airline pilots are a different breed of cat than before. Computer saavy seems to be more relevant than flying skills.

 

Unfortunately Joe, IQ is not a job skill for politicians. Doing what is popular instead of what is right has been the problem all along. They can't be career politicians without voting the easiest way! I plan to sue the socks off of anyone who crashes into me while being inattentive. It will be obvious who they are by the data recording. Do you suppose they'll make a black box one day?

 

Cars with airbags already have data recording capabilities - it's called an Event Data Recorder. Early air bag EDRs retained data for about five seconds prior to air bag deployment. This has been expanded dramatically over the last decade or so in both the length of time that is retained and the number of telemetry items recorded. These include throttle position, brake pedal force, steering angle, speed, and seatbelt status. There have been numerous court cases about who actually owns that data and whether or not it is admissible in court. Suffice to say this is yet another reason why the newest car I own is a 1985.

 

Yep!

 

"There is nothing that can't be solved with a suitable amount of explosives!" I saw that somewhere

 

There is nothing that can't be solved with a suitable amount of explosives!

 

You guys are just jealous because you can't hear the voices...