What Car? magazine currently have a campaign for all new cars to have ESP fitted as standard, for “safety”. It’s kicked off debates in several car and driving forums too- with some saying it’s practically immoral to turn it off.
For the record, I disagree with the idea, and while browsing the intermerweb (after a prompt from Stu on tyre sizes), I found this page at carbibles that hits the right note.
How about teaching people to drive? I’ve never had ESP, and spent many years driving cars that would willingly swap ends on you if you did something stupid- the answer is not to do something stupid, not to electronically mollycoddle people into just blindly going ahead. I mean, automatic fucking headlamps? The world is mad.
I’m sure most regular readers here drove with drum brakes, maybe no servo, no ABS, no power steering, maybe no synchro on first etc. Several of us drove Minis (the proper one)- as did thousands of housewives who manged to not land them in the hedge despite the lack of driver ‘aids’.
“The world is mad.” Indeed. However, people in power, and you know who I mean here, think that technology will solve everything rather than believing that proper education will solve most things.
Stop allowing people to use their skill, and the skill will be lost forever.
I’m in two minds…
I wonder if this is standard evolution – I know I couldn’t drive a stage-coach, and should I be _expected_ to know how to drive a stage-coach.
But on the other hand it does seem ridiculous that people aren’t even _aware_ of things like road surface, weather, bends, stopping distances etc. I guess the key point is that no matter how much gadgetry there is in your vehicle, if you hit, for example, a patch of black ice, NONE OF IT WILL HELP. With these auto-piloting cars, that’s the sort of thing which is being forgotten.
Stu, you make a good point. It’s true that some skills aren’t required. Like driving with a crash box, but then cars without synchromesh are rare, and if a driver without the skills tried to drive one, it wouldn’t be dangerous. I’m personally very concerned about the reliance on gadgets for safety- and the promotion of a gadget as a life-saver, when it isn’t, unless the car was already being driven past it’s limits. Here’s another thing- the gadgets can be counter-productive (ABS on snow, for example).