Posted on 12/30/2016 11:52:25 AM PST by SES1066
If Ford is conscientious and does not include allt he “entertainment apparati” and Toyota does, Ford loses sales.
I’ve never been cut off or had to drive off the road due to someone testing but several times due to women talking on their cells. Texting scares me, too, but I have not knowingly been endangered by it. Yet.
Without question the gadgets are a selling point, but let’s not kid ourselves into thinking they enhance driving skills.
Like cell phones that come with every kind of enhancement except the ability simply to “reach out and touch” someone (and I don’t mean taser). How about a cell phone that simply makes provision for inbound/outbound voice. Period.
Feeling curmudgeonly.
Thanks to SES1066 for posting and Kingu for the heads-up!
The latest Apple/Mac/iOS Pings can be found by searching Keyword "ApplePingList" on FreeRepublic's Search.
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me
Something similar for the back camera on my car. The damn thing takes 20 seconds to display the legal disclaimer which makes it useless.
Something similar for the back camera on my car. The damn thing takes 20 seconds to display the legal disclaimer which makes it useless.
No one was understanding the warning message that said your windshield is getting rained on, turn on wipers. So GM in 1955 invented automatic wipers that turned on when windshield got water on a sensor!
Prior to that man had to rely on his WITS!
Something that some people, today, don’t have.
The plaintiff’s bottom dwelling, scum sucking attorney accurately expects Apple to settle for mucho dinero.
Driver. Rope. Tree. Fixed.
“Please stop me from behaving like an idiot”
There is a technology—working brain cells.
There is some stuff for the driver and it is designed so they do not have to take their eyes off the road.
The other stuff is for children and other passengers.
Yep. The touchscreens on new cars seem absurd and more dangerous than phones. I think the systems with the “mouse” near the shifter are safer than touchscreens. i.e. BMW idrive. That way your control is always in 1 spot.
Using tiny virtual buttons on a touchscreen to change the radio is super distracting. You have to look to find the button and then look to make sure your finger is in the right spot as you reach. And when you try to repeatedly press it, it can slip off.
You don’t have this issue with physical buttons since you eventually remember where they are by touch.
= = =
Amen to all of this.
My old ‘53 Chev radio could be operated in the dark, by touch.
Volume = one knob
Tuning = the other knob
“Enhanced Tuning” = pre-sets
This new touch screen stuff is dangerous, much more so than texting.
Texting scares me, too, but I have not knowingly been endangered by it. Yet.
= = =
I have. By a well-dressed mature man in a business suit, driving a new Jeep Grand Cherokee. All over three lanes, almost tail-ending a semi in the right lane. Fast - slow - fast. Oblivious. I had to work hard to get away from him.
Then just the other day, a local city cop was texting in his patrol car. Not a danger at the time, but ... come on ... isn’t he to be an example?
“By building a car that could be driven on the wrong side of the road during a blizzard and cause a seventeen car pile up leading to me spilling my McDonalds coffee on my lap the Ford Motor Company is responsible for a hundred million dollars in pain and suffering.”
That’s why I loved the controls on the ‘66 Bonneville I used to drive. I could find every control by touch blindfolded. You knew precisely how the heater was set (blower speed and air temp) by the set of the horizontal slider controls.
Today’s controls are a must-level maze of madness. It’s almost impossible to change the blower speed on my wife’s little MB SUV. Teeny buttons, down low by the console with microscopic embossed icons. The buttons are black in a black interior in a dimly lit part of the console.
It is obvious today’s 30 something designers have never used good old fashioned man-hand-sized tactile controls and they never learned “human factors” design principles.
Frankly, I’m amazed that we don’t have far more deadly accidents attributed to extremely poor car cockpit layout with incomprehensible controls.
I once saw a TV show about cars, and a “safety expert” made the point that all the improved safety features actually caused more accidents because they made drivers more confident and less attentive.
He said that if you really want to reduce car accidents, the most effective way would be to have a sword blade sticking out of the steering wheel pointing right at the driver’s chest.
I think he had a point. (No pun intended.)
Of course they don’t, but you should not blame the car companies. To them it is commercial life or death. Way back nearly 50 years ago I was horrified at the total touch screen control panel on a new Buick. Even the radio was on that screen. You had to take your eyes off the road for a second or for many operations, for maybe 5 seconds to adjust the heat or air or turn on the radio and fine a station or do many other previously tactile operations. That didn’t last then but has cropped up on occasional models since then. I see that as almost as dangerous as texting and I don’t understand why people like it. I much prefer to be able to reach over and feel the knob without having to look at it.
Sort of like the Sun Screens people put in their windshield to block the sun, has to have the words remove before driving, when clearly you can't see anything forward of the car.
Lawyers make all this necessary, no wonder the earlier settlers tried to ban them according to Paul Harvey's "The Rest of the Story."
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.