Driver "aids" Why so many? Can no-one drive anymore?

[oyster]

S2Mike said:

Boredom Rant.
I prefer the pure feeling of driving, oh look its raining I will turn on my wipers,its getting dark I will turn my lights on, oh the traffic has stopped for 3 seconds I will turn off my engine and restart when ready to move again.
.
Not trying to offend anyone but if you cant park your own car without help, WTF as they say!!

If you can't drive in the rain without wipers then you need help.

[VxDuncan]

Stop / Start - Required to get competative emissions results
ABS - Legislation requires it
ESC - Soon to be required by EU
Tire Pressure Monitoring - required by US after the firestone incident, so rolled out in other markets

The rest tend to have come from the requirement for differenciation - both between models of the same vehicle (base spec is very high these days), and inter-brand.

[hesnotthemessiah]

It's a conspiracy maaaan!

The Government want us to become more and more relient on driver aids, taking over breaking etc etc. then it will be steering. In California today, they have passed a 'driverless cars' bill.

A few years down the line.......Jonny Cab!

I think I'll stick to my car thanks......it comes from a time when ABS was considered 'witchcraft' and I'm more than happy to stay there.

[Captain Muppet]

I see that in protest against electronic help some people have stopped using spell check.

[chris182]

I would separate gadgets and driving aids into separate categories. I like gadgets: auto lights & wipers, climate control, electric mirrors etc just free the driver to concentrate on actually driving and looking where they're going rather than constantly adjusting various ancillary controls.

Of the actual driver aids (ABS, EBFD, ESC etc) I only like ABS and in some circumstances ESP but only if both can be switched off when required. ABS is proven to be much better than any human at maintaining maximum braking force with steering control on normal/wet road surfaces, the only situation where it is bad is on snow or loose surfaces where you want to be able to lock the wheels to build up a mound in front of them which slows the car.

Traction control serves no purpose apart from occasionally killing the power when you really don't want it to like pulling onto a roundabout. ESP is good on a wet motorway at high speed but on slippery surfaces at low speed just gets in the way.

[renrut]

Captain Muppet said:

I see that in protest against electronic help some people have stopped using spell check.

Should we doing this by carving on the wall in the local cave?

[thinfourth2]

I take it the OP has removed the vacuum advance from his engine and it better not be fuel injected

[Twincam16]

RWD cossie wil said:

I do agree with the op to be fair, so many people now really have zero idea of car control & expect the car to do it all for them, as proven by the huge amount of accidents in the last big snow.

Ask 10 people what ABS is for, I bet you at least 9 will say "to make you stop faster"!

Traction & stability control give people huge confidence boosts, and end up with a big gap between talent & their idea of talent, so when it does go wrong it goes wrong in a rarther spectacular fashion, due to people not driving to conditions & expecting the computers to sort it all out for them.

Oh God - I remember how it was in the snow a few years back when I took my mountain bike up to Alderley Edge and encountered ditch after ditch of flailing SUV drivers.

Some of them could be helped, it seemed, if they had a car with switchable traction control and manual transmission. Turn it off, run up through the gears as high as you can, then at low revs, try and move, preparing to add opposite lock.

However, the automatics full of driver aids really were screwed. Stamping on pedals, sawing away at the wheel, all to no avail while grumbling that this TLA and that system and so on were 'meant to stop it doing this'.

I think you've hit the nail on the head here - it's all very well having this stuff, but they're driver aids, not idiot-proofing. People really do need to know and demonstrate knowledge of vehicle handling dynamics in the driving test, because at the moment every time the weather does anything other than mild drizzle, the country is paralysed and we get doom-laden warnings about 'treacherous' roads as though the tarmac itself got together and decided to attack motorists at random.

Thing is, compared to other countries who deal far more effectively with this sort of thing, we're a total laughing stock. The defence is always 'these conditions are rare in the UK', but they're not - they happen every year, and even if it's not snowing all the time, heavy rain can be just as bad, especially when people switch to 'green' low-resistance tyres with bugger-all grip.

[rawkyjnr]

I think the UK issue with driving in all senses is cultural, we just don't take driving seriously compared to the Scandinavians, or the Germans for example.

The key has to be educating people more thoroughly in how to drive than we do now, because the only way I've learnt to deal with a car sliding around or skidding is by my car having no grip and going into empty carparks to learn about how it moves...

The systems are an aid, and not to be relied on. Think of it as having a banister on a flight of stairs...

[Captain Muppet]

renrut said:

Captain Muppet said:

I see that in protest against electronic help some people have stopped using spell check.

Should we doing this by carving on the wall in the local cave?

Pictograms only. And no cheating and making tools, just pick rocks up off the floor and use them as you found them.

[Twincam16]

rawkyjnr said:

I think the UK issue with driving in all senses is cultural, we just don't take driving seriously compared to the Scandinavians, or the Germans for example.

The key has to be educating people more thoroughly in how to drive than we do now, because the only way I've learnt to deal with a car sliding around or skidding is by my car having no grip and going into empty carparks to learn about how it moves...

The systems are an aid, and not to be relied on. Think of it as having a banister on a flight of stairs...

I have a nasty feeling it's because the wobbly-arsed Brits have fallen for the American Lay-Z-Boy, Buy 'n' Large lifestyle, partly due to psychotically aggressive marketing both of 'status brands' (and 'must haves' within) and 'convenience'.

There's a stark contrast with Europe. Did you know, for example, that otherwise identical foods from the same companies have a higher fat, salt and sugar content in Britain than they do in the rest of Europe? It was mentioned on The Food Programme on Radio 4 a couple of weeks ago. The response from the food companies was that it was 'what we wanted', but frankly I don't think we'd notice the difference if the contents were reduced. We're just treated with a deadly combination of contempt and patronisation by both governments and the marketing industry.

Go to mainland Europe and the people seem a hell of a lot more intelligent and skilled on average than the galactic-arsed sofa-bound Brit who behaves like a spoilt child, stamping its feet and wanting everything done for it NOW NOW NOW! - and rather than realising its educational role or showing restraint, government and marketeers merely indulge it.

We're a shameful people.

[AJB]

Twincam16 said:

If you are competant to drive, then it should be second nature to switch on your headlights, reverse-park, drive down a motorway without straying out of your lane, turn on and adjust your wipers etc. These things are second-nature to me, and it's annoying when I find myself battling with the car itself over quite how fast I want the wipers to sweep, or how bright I want the headlights to be.

How about intermittent wipers then? Presumably you'd rather not have that particular new-fangled, over-complicated invention. And what about self-parking wipers? If you're competent to drive, then I'd think it would be second nature to flick the wipers when required in light rain, and switch them off at just the right time so that they park at the bottom of the screen...

[AJB]

RWD cossie wil said:

My question is, how long before we get the first big "adaptive cruise control" smash? Driver not paying attention, ploughing into the back of a stationary truck etc? It will happen at some point!

Absolutely, 100%, it will happen. But I suspect there will be a lot more smashes avoided by distracted driver not noticing stationary truck and car applying brakes... It's not as if stationary trucks don't end up in smashes at the moment...

[Monty Python]

Saw someone a couple of days ago who obviously needed them - parked his Jag XK backwards.......up the embankment on the M53.

[AJB]

RWD cossie wil said:

No doubt I would prefer the vast majority of idiots on the road to use them, but it HAS degraded the average drivers ability IMHO compared to older cars where you had to cadence brake, & corner at an appropriate speed to avoid an accident.

I'd say my Mum is an "average" driver. She learnt to drive in a mini in the early 60s - certainly no "modern" driver aids. I'm pretty confident in saying that she doesn't know what cadence braking is. And I'm pretty sure that the fact that her current car has ABS makes no difference to how she drives it, or to her ability. It's just that, if the worst happens, she's going to be more likely to steer round something rather than sliding into it.

[Twincam16]

AJB said:

Twincam16 said:

If you are competant to drive, then it should be second nature to switch on your headlights, reverse-park, drive down a motorway without straying out of your lane, turn on and adjust your wipers etc. These things are second-nature to me, and it's annoying when I find myself battling with the car itself over quite how fast I want the wipers to sweep, or how bright I want the headlights to be.

How about intermittent wipers then? Presumably you'd rather not have that particular new-fangled, over-complicated invention. And what about self-parking wipers? If you're competent to drive, then I'd think it would be second nature to flick the wipers when required in light rain, and switch them off at just the right time so that they park at the bottom of the screen...

Don't be silly. The difference is in the driver deciding and the car, in effect, guessing.

[Twincam16]

AJB said:

RWD cossie wil said:

No doubt I would prefer the vast majority of idiots on the road to use them, but it HAS degraded the average drivers ability IMHO compared to older cars where you had to cadence brake, & corner at an appropriate speed to avoid an accident.

I'd say my Mum is an "average" driver. She learnt to drive in a mini in the early 60s - certainly no "modern" driver aids. I'm pretty confident in saying that she doesn't know what cadence braking is. And I'm pretty sure that the fact that her current car has ABS makes no difference to how she drives it, or to her ability. It's just that, if the worst happens, she's going to be more likely to steer round something rather than sliding into it.

I'd say the same of my parents, and they buy cars with a view to keeping them indefinitely.

As a result they want the simplest engineering possible. I'm talking no electric windows here. They'd be ideal candidates for a Dacia Logan, but for some reason we can't get them over here.

[otolith]

I reckon I've had more trouble with windy-windows than electric ones - though that might just be because back when I was driving cars with windy-windows I was driving bangers.

[Leins]

Twincam16 said:

I know what the OP's getting at. Some driver aids are OK, but most for me fall into one or both of the following camps:

-The stuff that just shouldn't be needed once you've passed your test. If you are competant to drive, then it should be second nature to switch on your headlights, reverse-park, drive down a motorway without straying out of your lane, turn on and adjust your wipers etc. These things are second-nature to me, and it's annoying when I find myself battling with the car itself over quite how fast I want the wipers to sweep, or how bright I want the headlights to be.

-The stuff that seems like a pleasant novelty when the car is new, but will cost a fortune to put right if it broke, adding to pointless ownership woes once the car hits the second-hand market.

I think we must also remember the principles of good design - that is, the simplest, cheapest, most ergonomic and elegant solution build for longevity. In cars, that means designing it with good visibility in the first place rather than having to resort to cameras everywhere, or on a sports car, ensuring the steering and exhaust note are real rather than having to artificially engineer them in afterwards. Over-complication and unnecessary complexity is the very essence of 'bad design'.

Completely agree, my previous E92 3-series was full of junk I never wanted (eg an automated arm to hand you your seat-belt), and will bankrupt someone to fix a few years down the line I suspect. All added to the weight too

The only more modern "aid" that my E30 could really do with are a set of Xenons, as old headlights are rubbish

[renrut]

Leins said:

Completely agree, my previous E92 3-series was full of junk I never wanted (eg an automated arm to hand you your seat-belt), and will bankrupt someone to fix a few years down the line I suspect. All added to the weight too

What a bizzare bit of equipment? Was this an option or did they all have it? I thought the idea of electric seats was too much, its not like I constantly move the seat while I'm driving...