Do modern cars shape modern drivers?

Toyman01 wrote: That study is 5 years old. I'd be interested in seeing what the last 5 years looks like. As someone who drives every day, all day, texting has gone through the roof. I end up blowing the horn at a texter at least once a day.

The study is exactly what the OP was asking about though. The decline of basic automotive knowledge, and ever increasing electronic driving aids, over the last 30 years is obviously not having any directly correlated adverse effect on the rate of accidents occurring.

But I too was curious about the past few years, and wanted to see what the actual numbers were for prior years as well. From the NHTSA data I compiled, as of 1990 you could expect 302 total accidents per hundred million vehicle miles driven. By 1995 that dropped to 276. Falling to 233 in 2000. Then to 206 in 2005. And to 183 in 2010. Hitting a low of 181 in 2011. In 2012 and 2013 the numbers increased to 189 and 192 respectively. Unfortunately the 2014 data does not appear to be available yet. To me this mostly reinforces the notion that drivers are less likely to get into an accident in recent years than historically...Even without knowing what to do in a bunch of increasingly rare scenarios.

And while there aren't enough increasing data points to be considered statistically significant yet, noting that there was also a minor 2 year increase in 1994 and 1995 on an otherwise decreasing trend, but that there is definitely the possibility that technology based distracted driving may be leading to some degree of increased rate of accidents in recent years. However, the numbers indicate that it's nowhere near as bad as people like to make it out to be regarding the resultant actual rate accidents occurring. As of 2013, you were still less likely to be in an accident per mile driven than at any reasonable point of comparison prior to 2009.

And my dryer is red...So, you know it drys the fastest!

My mom's new x5 has so many nannies they are almost hard to take in while driving. They add to the problem more than they help as they take thought to understand them all. My mom always going "what's that" and losing concentration as its various sounds and vibrations go off.

Having a car you could reasonably see out of would be the biggest safety improvement.

The new X5 is HUGE by the way.

I detest all the nannies; I prefer to do it myself. Well, with the exception of ABS, I do like that. But yeah the vast majority of drivers are helpless without them. It isn't just in driving; a little while back a friend and I stopped at a C-store, there was a Honda Accord with a flat in the parking lot. Two girls, two boys, all early 20's sitting in it, all furiously texting. They had NO IDEA how to mount the spare!

I keep hearing how great the autonomous cars will be, how they will free us from the drudgery of driving, make us more productive, etc etc etc. and I ain't buying it. All it's gonna take is for the GPS system to go down and the oh so productive types will be stranded, with no idea of how to get around.

Me, hopefully I'll be ashes before the autonomous car comes around but if I'm still here I'll be the old coot cackling gleefully as I drive my stinky polluting impossibly old fashioned manual control only pile of junk past them. If I'm REALLY lucky, it'll be deep winter and they will be freezing their balls off.

Nick_Comstock wrote:

chiodos wrote: Well we do have both, but no one bothers with learning just rather leave stability control on..remember this is America, driving is a RIGHT not a privilege. Ha ha ha. Thats the mentality of lots of drivers ive encountered though.

I had a judge assure me very convincingly that, in fact, driving is a privilege not a right It almost slowed me down, only growing up made me less of a menace to society. On topic, I still have the right to choose not to own a car with all the nannies. So until that time comes that's what I'll do.

That was sarcasm...driving most definitely is a privilege and not a right but many people feel driving is a god given right and dont need to know how to properly drive...

on subject though I may just be a grumpy old bastard as my newest car I know is only 2 years younger than I am and abs is my right foot. Hell ill just start my own country, no sissies allowed!

In reply to chiodos:

Yes, I realized that. It's just that the judge used that exact phrasing, so I thought the story fit.

Every year since about 1979 I've made at least one road trip between Las Vegas and SoCal and the one that has not changed is the idiots driving along in the left lane clueless to all the people who have to pass on the right.........point being people always have and always will continue to drive like poo. If its not text it's fishing around for radio stations or busy blabing to thier passengers. Naturally car makers respond with cars that take even less effort to drive. My brother used to "gear down" to slow the car, his early cars had 4 wheel drum brakes. He also "powered" through the corners because he drove things that had garbage tires and no handling. He started driving in 1976 but hung around guys whose car concepts were straight out of urban myths.......the cars shaped the drivers? I always viewed them as guys who only thought they new about cars but were really part of the car appliance herd. We have to ask ourselves what's worse, someone who thinks they're AJ Andretti Di Silva in a car without Nannies or Mr Modern Car Appliance whose car bails them out 100 times a second.............they are the same person separated by 20 years......again average motorists have always been clueless.

  Tom

jj wrote: I recently sat through TWO complete light cycles because the driver in front was so intently texting that he didn't notice the green light or hear the numerous cars honking at him! He sat until the light turned red again, then green again and finally went!

Mandatory push-bars.

So the question is; Do modern cars shape modern drivers? I don't see how the answer could be anything but yes.

I never mastered the art of setting ignition timing in order to start the engine. My grandfather knew how, but I learned on a then modern car, and just let that fancy distributor do it for me.

Other than the lawn mower, and later some motorcycles, I didn't master the hand start either. I just turned a key or pushed a button. No broken thumbs or wrists, though I read about it and would likely remember to tuck my thumb in, should I ever happen to need to start a car with a hand crank engine.

Am I a worse driver because I just turn the key to start the car? Was my grandfather inherently a better driver than me because he did own a Model T? I don't think so. Nor do I think I'll be inherently better than my son because I drove cars with drum brakes, bias ply tires and manual steering.

Quite honestly, I really don't mind having cars that I don't have to take 5 minutes each morning to inspect and fix before I drive them. Topping off oil, and coolant, and putting some air in that tire that keeps going low. I find it rather nice to simply drive the darn things.

Will my son perhaps be less of a home mechanic on his car because of the modern conveniences, complications, and incredible reliability? Probably. Again, that's not inherently a bad thing. His cars will probably go for years without needing brake work. Some of mine required adjustments every few days. Got to love four wheel drums with manual adjusters. Especially after you belled the drums dropping it off the bumper jack (remember those?) changing yet another flat tire (don't seem to get those much either any more).

So yes, a modern driver loses some skills, because they are no longer needed. That does mean that same driver will not be so capable should they drive an older car. Again, so what? I really don't care that I'm not terribly capable of driving and especially shifting a Model T. Should I get the chance to drive one, I'm sure the owner would be there to help me master which pedals to push which way in order to make the thing go and to pick the different gears. I could even look it up on the web, and play with the Model T simulators for practice (there are such things, really!). And should the opportunity to drive a Model T arise, I'm equally sure I won't confuse it for my Miata, and promptly try to drive it out onto the interstate or go autocrossing with it (well, I might autocross it, just for novelty, if the owner was game to let me).

Todays driver uses a GPS instead of a map crumped across the steering wheel. Todays driver sits in air conditioned comfort instead of sweating away, wishing the air the vent windows blew in was cool. Todays driver expects to see where they are going at night, instead of squinting into the yellow tinted darkness of our incadescent DOT headlights. Todays driver turns the key and their fuel injected engine starts, instantly. Instead of dancing away on the gas pedal and trying to get the engine to cough to life.

So yes, undoubtably the modern car shapes the modern driver. How could they not?

In reply to foxtrapper:

This! Change a few words and you can reuse it as a rebuttal against every "New car tech is evil/drivers today" thread that pops up twice a week.

I would argue that the “nannies” are making us safer more often than worse off, as long as the driver doesn’t decide that the nannies make their 1 ton SUV “invincible” thus forth allowing them to text, yell at their kids 10 ft away in the back seat, and do 70 on the highway in a snow storm because their land barge is “safe” because it’s an SUV and they have 4WD. Traction control, stability control, ABS, and AWD don’t do E36 M3 to save you if you are blatantly disregarding weather conditions. There’s nothing I enjoy more seeing SUVs scattered in the ditches during that first hour of a snowstorm because these idiots thought their SUVs made them omnipotent. I call it “The Darwin Hour”.

To the point that foxtrapper so eloquently expressed with the Model T analogy though, there IS something we are “missing” as cars are “easier” to drive and ignore their maintenance. Even as a young kid I was into cars and I eagerly awaited the day that my old man was going to teach me everything he learned about cars from working in my Uncle’s Repair Station rebuilding carburetors and transmissions, etc. He called me out into the garage and said we were going to change the spark plugs on my Mom’s 3.0L V6 1994 Plymouth Acclaim. He started poking around under the hood and let out a string of swears under his breath and then said “Forget it. The God Damn spark plugs are underneath the intake manifold in the back. You can go back in the house. I’m gonna take it to the dealership.” I felt like I just watched all that knowledge of cars he could have shared with me get flushed down the drain.

Do we really want to deal with a manually adjusting carb jets and ignition timing, checking the oil, the antifreeze, etc. daily as a part of our routine? No, but it sucks that more and more Joe Schmoe isn’t learning how to maintain a car because it’s over his head. The same goes for learning how to drive stick. Unless your parents happen to you have to actively seek out learning these days and even finding a car to be taught on. They ain’t gonna cover it in Driver’s Ed!

On a side tangent, am I the only one afraid of a future where I’m an angry old curmudgeon driving a gasoline powered car cursing wildly as I’m penned in by a sea of autonomous electric or hydrogen cars jockeying for position to keep a “perfect safety distance” between each other while the people inside aren’t even looking at the road while they are playing on their Apple watch or whatever the hell we have then or watching a movie on their dash?

I feel like the only thing we have to hope for is a sudden plummeting in value of gas powered cars as fuel supplies get more scarce or expensive. Hopefully we aren’t traveling the highway like Mad Max looking for gas……

I also think that modern cars shape modern drivers. To try to talk about other factors not mentioned, I think that tire technology has also helped prevent accidents, especially when you talk about accidents from the 00s compared to earlier decades. Some distractions are more serious that others; I'm not sure that changing a radio station causes a high number of accidents when you can just glance down to do it.

I'm going to buy a paper map because some lightly used roads aren't on GPS, plus, you can see where your destination is while stopped in route, especially when going to new autocross sites. Crumpling a map instead of folding it back makes it rip apart faster.

Chiodos, even my E36s rear window is at a higher level than the front windshield, so it could use a rearview camera. It makes backing up safer because drivers can see low items like kids, low slung sports cars, rocks, etc. I don't know if they need to look back too, but it's a good feature. And yes, it does make you sound like a grumpy old man, but that's ok. It's also entertaining to listen to old people complain about progress.

Ever notice how many cars you see on the road with no headlights on when it's raining? That's because most cars have automatic lights. People have stopped thinking about turning that switch to the ON position, so they don't bother to do so when it's raining.

In reply to Sky_Render:

All the auto lights I've encountered come on when the wipers are on.

IMHO, what you see are people who just don't turn their lights on- which has been common over my driving lifetime.