Your New Car is Spying On You

[Faust]

Too many of us get killed in auto accidents to risk trusting more people to actually be good at driving.

Or maybe the causality runs the other way: Automatics lull the drivers into a dull complacency, which leads to more accidents.

sounds right.
You have to be aware of your speed to use the clutch properly.

[LMNO]

You have to really feel what the car is doing.  When I still had stick, I could tell by engine noise and vibration when it was time to shift, no need to look at the spedometer.

[Salty]

It's also damned near impossible to text (FB, PD, etc) and drive while driving stick.

That alone should make the damned things mandatory.

[Left]

I just like being able to downshift and haul ass when needed...
Allows less engine to do more work, better fuel efficiency...

Also, surprising tailgaters is fun.

The discord's transmission is slipping badly, I actually have to pay attention to the RPMs and sort of flutter the gas pedal to get it to shift into the right gear, failure to do so causes over heating.  This happened today, so I had to turn the heater on to cool the car.

Admittedly, great for relieving my water retention problem, but also very much like driving a mobile sauna in this weather.
It was 97 degrees today.
And the driver's side window is jammed shut, too.
At least the other windows and the moonroof work.

...My ex said "It isn't YOUR car until some part is being held on with coathanger wire."
...That would be the front body panel in this case.
...Shake and bake, the last car someone killed for me, lost a headlight housing on the freeway once.
Fortunately it was intact when I went back to get it.

...The duct tape had come loose...

[Golden Applesauce]

It's also damned near impossible to text (FB, PD, etc) and drive while driving stick.

That alone should make the damned things mandatory.

Yes, anecdotal - but one of my friends recently started texting while driving, after switching to stick. His GF's theory was that learning to drive stick made him think he was God or something. We both yelled at him a lot so hopefully he's cut it out.

[Golden Applesauce]

Full disclaimer: In a civilized country, I wouldn't be allowed to drive. I have crappy reflexes, I'm bad at judging distances, my night vision is shit, and I have a hard time paying attention to all of the things.

I hate driving.

It's the single thing most likely to kill me in the next 40 years, and I can't not do it. It does NOT make me feel better about it when I see people weaving through traffic 30mph faster than everyone else. I used to actually drive the speed limit, but I stopped because people kept doing crazy maneuvers to pass around me. It just wasn't safe.

I also think that if you have a law, it needs to be enforced. Right now, we're in this legal limbo where everybody speeds, so the cops can pull over whoever they want. Since they're not making that decision on the basis of whether or not people are actually breaking the law - what are they deciding that on? Race of the driver and what kind of car you drive. In NYC, the police had an explicit program where they would actively pull over people who "looked Muslim" or were in a Muslim neighborhood, just so they could threaten people into becoming informants "keep tabs on the terrorist Muslim community."

Given the choice, I would much rather have "Driving recklessly" be a crime than "Driving while brown."

[Left]

I understand some students at a college in Atlanta decided, for shits and giggles, to drive the speed limit in morning rush hour traffic...in a line occupying all available lanes...
I'm not sure if they were charged for doing this... Or shot at.

[Triple Zero]

Yeah I remember that story. It was many years back, they didn't get charged afaik, those were better times

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I understand some students at a college in Atlanta decided, for shits and giggles, to drive the speed limit in morning rush hour traffic...in a line occupying all available lanes...
I'm not sure if they were charged for doing this... Or shot at.

Hahaha

Our freeways are so overburdened and bottlenecked that it's impossible to get anywhere close to the speed limit during rush hour.

[Left]

I understand some students at a college in Atlanta decided, for shits and giggles, to drive the speed limit in morning rush hour traffic...in a line occupying all available lanes...
I'm not sure if they were charged for doing this... Or shot at.

Hahaha

Our freeways are so overburdened and bottlenecked that it's impossible to get anywhere close to the speed limit during rush hour.

Ours are, like, metastasizing.
Nobody's realized that every time they widen the damn freeway, more people move out to where the newly-widened freeway takes them...and therefore within (I'm guessing) 2-4 years, the shit will be just as bad as it was.
There's a strip of freeway that (no kidding) is now 14 lanes wide.

So what you have is clumps of congestion.
In between the (appropriate for Houston) clogged arteries,  you have people driving at least 5 miles over the speed limit, usually...combined with people weaving in and out at speeds up to and possibly exceeding 100.
...Combine that with trucks losing loads and parts of loads all the time, no turn signals used, potholes, tailgaters and other insane shit ( like this one guy I saw doing jumping jacks in the median of the freeway for no apparent reason ) and you have normal daytime conditions.
Nighttime conditions?  It's just safer to assume everyone you are sharing the freeway with is drunk.

[LMNO]

14 lanes? No shit?

[Left]

14 lanes? No shit?

I thought it was only 12 tbh.
So I looked up the google satellite image of that section of freeway, and I jolly well counted the lanes...7 in each direction.
And it gets jammed...

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I understand some students at a college in Atlanta decided, for shits and giggles, to drive the speed limit in morning rush hour traffic...in a line occupying all available lanes...
I'm not sure if they were charged for doing this... Or shot at.

Hahaha

Our freeways are so overburdened and bottlenecked that it's impossible to get anywhere close to the speed limit during rush hour.

Ours are, like, metastasizing.
Nobody's realized that every time they widen the damn freeway, more people move out to where the newly-widened freeway takes them...and therefore within (I'm guessing) 2-4 years, the shit will be just as bad as it was.
There's a strip of freeway that (no kidding) is now 14 lanes wide.

So what you have is clumps of congestion.
In between the (appropriate for Houston) clogged arteries,  you have people driving at least 5 miles over the speed limit, usually...combined with people weaving in and out at speeds up to and possibly exceeding 100.
...Combine that with trucks losing loads and parts of loads all the time, no turn signals used, potholes, tailgaters and other insane shit ( like this one guy I saw doing jumping jacks in the median of the freeway for no apparent reason ) and you have normal daytime conditions.
Nighttime conditions?  It's just safer to assume everyone you are sharing the freeway with is drunk.

Ugh. I think our widest freeways are 4 lanes each way, and never getting any wider because no space.

[Junkenstein]

I'd suspect that the wider it gets over a greater distance, the worse the problem will become for exactly the reasons stated - Accidents/drunks/shedding loads.

I think what you're seeing is the development for some absolutely insane car wrecks. One truck flipping and everyone panics to avoid it and you'll get carnage on an unforseen scale.

Add a chemical tanker or the like to that and you could have a real fucking disaster.

5 years, tops.

[Junkenstein]

Also, consider:

How much is "your car" really "Your" car? In the UK, you have to register the vehicle like a birth with the government to get a certificate telling you that you own the thing you bought.

You must then purchase insurance against any harm you may inflict with "your" property. At a minimum here you need 3rd party cover.

If there is damage to "your" property, you report it to the insurance company that may or may not decide if "your" property is now beyond repair and worthless. Your opinion on these things is fairly moot once you report it to them.


Some insurers in the UK are now insisting on fleet vehicles to be fitted with various tracker/driver monitoring devices. Personal insurances tend to follow business trends.


Result - The chance of this kind of thing becoming mandatory in the UK within the mid-term future? Almost certain. Insurance firms will probably bear a chunk of the cost and carve it back through higher premiums, install/removal fees and brand specific devices.

Aside - The thing where there's a breath test linked to the engine is probably worth noting here due to the sheer numbers around drunk/intoxicated driving.

Second aside - Most people use a manual in the UK. My experiences in automatics is similar to a go-kart. Texting/phones while driving is a fairly serial thing in the UK. Published numbers place direct casualties as comparable to drink-driving. Given the general speed of traffic in the UK it's not a particular challenge to use a phone most of the time. The problem tends to be idiots who are trying to change youtube videos at 80MPH. That said, I have seen people fined for texting while in a traffic jam. It's fairly difficult to separate the "good legislation" thing from the "money making exercise" thing.