I’ve written several articles about what is marketed as “Advanced Driver Assistance” (ADAS) technology. By which is meant “technology” that tries to parent drivers. The language is insufferably condescending. It assumes drivers need “assistance” – like a person who has difficulty walking needs a can or maybe a wheelchair. The presumption used to be that a driver – ipso facto – knew how to. And when one knows how, one no longer needs “assistance.”
Think of training wheels as a for-instance. A kid learning how to ride a bicycle needs such assistance – until he or she learns how to ride. At which point the training wheels come off because they are no longer needed. Imagine not taking them off – after the kid has learned how to ride.
Imagine them as required equipment on adult bicycles.
That is what Advanced Driver Assistance amounts. You are so enfeebled as a driver that you need “assistance” keeping the car in its travel lane; so addled that you need “assistance” braking. And parking. You can’t even be trusted to keep your eyes on the road. Don’t worry; there’s “assistance” for that, too.
All of this begs a question, though. What happens when a driver chafes at being parented by all of this “assistance” technology?
Enter Unresponsive Driver Support.
It is the very latest and most advanced “technology” – and it’s the answer to the question about what happens when a driver chafes at being parented by advanced “technology.” It is also being marketed with similarly disingenuous verbiage.
“Unresponsive” means disobedient. That is to say, a driver who ignores or disables the “assistance” of ADAS “technology,” which encompasses Lane Keep Assistance, Brake Assistance, Drowsy Driver Assistance and – the big one – Speed Limit Assistance.
“Support” means intervention. As in what will happen when the driver is disobedient.
That is not, of course, the way this technology is being marketed. Herewith that, taken from the press materials pertaining to the ’25 CX-70 I recently test drove, which you can read for yourself on Mazda’s media site: Unresponsive Driver Support “adds an emergency-only system to automatically decelerate and stop the vehicle if the system detects the driver is unresponsive to escalating alerts.”
Italics added.
How long do you suppose such “technology” will be restricted to “emergency-only”? How long did the “emergency” last after it was declared back in the spring of 2020? What does “emergency” mean – and who gets to define to what it means? Well, it means when “the system detects the driver is unresponsive to escalating alerts.”
In other words, when the driver ignores the “escalating alerts.”
I got a taste of this while test-driving another car – one made by another car manufacturer, which I mention to make the point that it’s not just one manufacturer that is in involved. They are all involved – which begs some other questions.
But – first – the other taste of what happens when “the system detects the driver is unresponsive to escalating alerts.” I was “unresponsive” to “alerts” demanding I sit up! (not making this up) so that the eye-monitoring cameras embedded in the steering column that were watching me could see me. But it wasn’t because I was slouching in the seat. I had deliberately blinded the electronic eyes that wanted to watch me by placing a piece of blue painter’s tape over them. 
For now, the only response to my disobedience was the sit up! scolding. But implicit in the scolding is that I was doing something meriting a scolding. Else the car’s ADAS would not have been scolding me. Reason this out a little farther with me. If a driver is unresponsive to escalating alerts what will be the inevitable consequence?
If you guessed “automatically decelerate and stop the vehicle,” go to the head of the class.
This is the ultimate elaboration of Advanced Driver Assistance Technology. Begin with the premise that drivers require “assistance” to drive. With the implication – few see it – that without “assistance,” it is not safe for them to drive. Get them used to having to have “assistance technology” in their vehicles. Just the same as people have gotten used to being frisked like just-arrested felons at airports and having government goons paw through their possessions. In order to get them used to be being treated as criminals as a matter of routine.
Similarly, get them used to being scolded by “technology” when they aren’t obedient.
Ince that’s become part of the landscape, it will be only a small step forward to use “technology” to “automatically decelerate and stop the vehicle” when the system detects that the driver has become unresponsive to escalating alerts.
Like the “sit up!” alert I got hit with during my test-drive of the Lexus GX550. How about the “alerts” every new vehicle pelts its driver with when the driver drives faster than whatever the speed limit is? This is Speed Limit Assistance “technology,” about which I’ve written many times. The car knows you are “speeding” – and it “assists” you by scolding you to slow down. How soon before it “assists” you by forcing you to slow down?
And if you screw with the system so as to prevent it from knowing you’re “speeding” – and become unresponsive to escalating alerts – what do you suppose will happen next?
If you guessed “automatically decelerate and stop the vehicle,” go to the head of the class.
Just think: It all began with seatbelt buzzers. And here’s how it ends.
. . .
If you like what you’ve found here please consider supporting EPautos.
We depend on you to keep the wheels turning!
Our donate button is here.
If you prefer not to use PayPal, our mailing address is:
EPautos
721 Hummingbird Lane SE
Copper Hill, VA 24079
PS: Get an EPautos magnet or sticker or coaster in return for a $20 or more one-time donation or a $10 or more monthly recurring donation. (Please be sure to tell us you want a magnet or sticker or coaster – and also, provide an address, so we know where to mail the thing!)
If you like items like the Baaaaaa! baseball cap pictured below, you can find that and more at the EPautos store!
Watch it, now watch it, here it comes:
‘A bill awaiting approval from Gov. Gavin Newsom would require vehicles to include a warning system to alert drivers anytime they went more than 10 miles over the speed limit.
‘If passed, the requirement would go into effect in the 2030 model year for all new vehicles, with exceptions for emergency vehicles, motorcycles, motorized bicycles, mopeds and passenger vehicles already equipped with a GPS or a front-facing camera.
‘This would mark the first law of its kind in the U.S. and would rely on existing “intelligent speed adaptation” technology to try to curtail traffic fatalities and injuries.
“We are in a traffic safety crisis,” Assemblymember (((Josh Lowenthal))) (D-Long Beach) said on behalf of Sen. (((Scott Wiener))) (D-San Francisco), who wrote the bill, at a recent hearing. “Over 4,000 Californians die every year in traffic collisions on our roadways — a dramatic increase from pre-pandemic levels — and speeding is a major factor in one-third of these fatalities.” — L. A. Times
https://archive.ph/yFrH9#selection-2535.0-2563.370
Commiefornia: defining deviancy downward.
If elected president, pre-emptively expelling Commiefornia from the US will be one of my earliest priorities. I will fly the 49-star flag above the White House from Day One. The constitutional guarantee of a republican form of government means that one-party communist states ain’t allowed.
Good grief Eric I was thinking the same thing when I was watching your video: I graduated high school a long time ago and need no baby sitting, either. I can see (no pun intended) where sunglasses with human eyes on the front will come in handy so as to fool the all-seeing eye system. EVery draconian, freedom restricting law or mandate that the government tries to enforce, there will always be someone who will find a way around it.
[…] Guest Post by Eric Peters […]
Installed a set of seatbelt extenders today on my 24 Mazda CX-50. The quiet is wonderful. The seatbelt chime is the most irritating I have ever encountered. And it activates as soon as the car is started. Beyond annoying to have to belt up to back the car out of the garage and so forth. Makes me a bit salty that we have arrived at the point where it’s hard to enjoy the benefits of modern engineering because of all the nanny business.
Good stuff, liberty!
The first thing I do when I get a new vehicle to test drive is defeat/disable as much of the saaaaaaaaaaaaafety crap as possible.
If I could figger out how to disable both the lane assist and the steering assist on my 2020 Ford (con)Fusion, I would. Both work AGAINST situation al awareness. For fuck’s sake, I’m 65, not DEAD. I even have to overcome the autocorrect feature just to type “FUCK”! George Carlin and the “seven wprds”, where the FUCK are you when we NEED you the most?
Yes, This > “we have arrived at the point where it’s hard to enjoy the benefits of modern engineering because of all the nanny business”.
It’s sooo freaking sad/pathetic, that in America, this is a common routine:
“The first thing I do when I get a new vehicle to test drive is defeat/disable as much of the saaaaaaaaaaaaafety crap as possible.”
Idiocracy? …Bizarro World?
A land of promise, where flying cars crash on take off, jet packs explode on ignition, & the evil back-stabbers in .gov enable a hoard from other countries to invade & replace the native population * & drugs/vax are not to save, but to kill & disable.
“Dear insouciant American…”
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2024/09/01/a-vote-for-kamala-is-a-vote-for-tyranny/
Soon, VW Beetles as they once rolled out of Wolfsburg, FRG, will be deemed “dirty” and/or “unsafe”, and be outlawed from public thoroughfare, or even to be PRIVATELY owned and garaged. When that comes, only “outlaws” will have them, and I’ll be one of them! Mine will be painted and decaled as a staff car for SS-Brigadefuhrer Kurt “Panzer” Meyer, Commandant, 12th SS Panzerdivisionen “Hitlerjugend”.
Ok I’m hoping some people smarter than me can answer my question. I have an ‘09 Odyssey. I had to take the battery out recently and so now the touch screen wants me to put in the code before the navigation system will work again. I never use that system and don’t want my car/government etc to know everywhere I go. Is it too much to hope that if I don’t punch in the code the navigation is actually disabled??
P.S. I reaaallly just want to buy another older car now and hang onto it so I never have to actually drive some of these new cars you write about. They sound horrible
RE: “I reaaallly just want to buy another older car now…”
You know what to do.
If you have some cash…here is a great analog car…with a NA V12 and a stickshift
The Ferrari 456 GT: The Car So Scary To Own, Even YouTubers Won’t Buy One – But YOU Should…it is becoming more collectible now….
A nice analog sports GT car, with a gated 6 speed stick shift and an NA V12 ice engine… tubular steel spaceframe chassis, like a race car….strong and light….the 456 remained stable up to its maximum of around 190mph, a figure that made it the world’s fastest production four-seater passenger car, when it came out…..
…a real car….that could appreciate now….
Previous Ferrari 456 GT….BAT sales….2022 $60,000…2023 $77,000….2024 $80,000….
The Ferrari 456 GT is a transaxle car, like the Porsche 924/944/968/928, C5 to C7 Corvette…the best handling cars….
from the comments
I do love how pop-ups died due to pedestrian safety, but yet we have ever bigger landboats on the road. If I had to get hit by something moving 45mph, I would rather it be a popup headlight equipped sedan than the brick wall that is most trucks and suvs.
popup headlights, for a nice clean design….no longer available…. safety idiots…
Parts cross-referencing is a god send. Bosch is a very good example. My 1992 XJR-S has the same ABS vacuum accumulator as my 1993 SAAB. Also the same as a Lotus of the same era, and Bentleys, and Ford Granadas. I got a replacement Ford item for less than 100 quid. The Jag item was near 200, Lotus over 400, Bentley was 4 figures. Exact same part number.
@albanana683 New injectors for the 456 costs around 1500 USD, that’s 30 year old new-old-stock. Chrysler 3.5 V6 uses the same injector size as the V12, but they cost ~500 USD for a complete set for the Ferrari. Being 30 years newer they also have a better spray pattern giving it a minute better power!
@piratetype My old V12 Jag had an ignition module that costs a few hundred quid. Inside the box is a Chrysler component that is an off the shelf part that can be had for $20 from NAPA.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQ8L_TLiwqQ
This is extremely valuable knowledge and will be priceless to keep old stock running into the future.
“The Car”! Classic mechanized horror flick, predating “Christine” by years.
If that be any lesson to you, Eric, when your CX-70 becomes belligerent and attempts to chase you down, entice it off a cliff, where it will explode and release the growling demon within.
Yes! The James Brolin flick
Your mother barks at you from time to time.
Clean your room! Pick up your clothes! Blow your nose! Go outside! Get back into your basement room! Quit acting like a baby! Grow up! Go find something to do! Quit’cher bawlin’!
Sit down! You had better listen or else!
You hear it, please stop, don’t want to hear any of it. Shut up!
Now the cars are acting like mothers. The mothers!
It’s because mothers (and mother-like creatures) started getting into positions of power in the government.
The 19th Amendment, giving said “mothers” the right to vote, followed on the heels of the 18th. Both herald the death spin of this once great republic.
We’re going to visit my sister in Sarasota in a couple months and will be renting a car, since most rental companies have the newest models I wonder what kind of adventure I have coming. Have to pack one of those things that will cut the seat belt and smash the window glass in case the car tries to trap us. There used to be an outfit called ‘Rent a Wreck’ that rented out old cars but I can’t find any listings, guess Fedgov regulated them out of business.
Try this one, Mike,
https://www.rentawreck.com
Thanks Adi, usually fly direct to Sarasota but Tampa is close enough I might give it a try.
It was, in early 1989, on a training session at Wright-Patterson, I got a “Rent-a-Wreck”, an ’81 Plymouth Champ with the Twin stick, to drive around Dayton OH during the winter on a weekend. Car handled great on ice, it was a blast to drive, like a horny 19 y.o. coed. Owned TWO more over the course of the next ten years! Should have gotten the coed also.
Just think: It all began with seatbelt buzzers. And here’s how it ends.
Having worked as an automotive engineer in the industry, trust me when I say this isn’t how it ends.
There are technology is already there to lock the doors and to notify first responders in addition to just stopping the vehicle.
And right there is more useless technology at the work – stupid auto correct.
The technology is already there to lock the doors . . .
Hi BIT,
The average American loves their chains. They won’t even question something as terrifying as this.
Indeed.
2020 was the crossing of the Rubicon.
Eye opening as to how pathetically compliant America has become.
Become? I think they always were. It was sometime in the 1980s when I noticed that the average American was all too willing to “comply” with the 55 mph speed limit. Their behavior in 2020 still surprised me. We reached the point where the average american seemed to like the idea of the government telling them when to shit.
RE: “It was sometime in the 1980s”.
I think it was 1988. The saying upon departure from a party/gathering became, “Be safe”.
Terrible. Baby on board appeared in 1984 or thereabouts, with the advent of the Minivan. I noticed the compliance with the 55 was much greater than I expected when I moved to Texas for my first job. Back then, there was a lot of open road outside the DFW and Houston areas, yet people were troping along at around 62 to 65 mph most of the time. A few high flyers like myself used to run 80 to 110 mph. I remember driving at least 100 miles straight at 110 with a cluster of BMWs Mercedes and Porsches from Ennis to Centerville, flouting the law the whole time. I narrowly escaped a ticket.
Hi Swamp!
I see what strikes me as interesting corollary. Drive 55 normalized timid/passive driving and made the latter kinds of drivers feel righteous – they are safe! – while those who “speed” are dangerous!
Similarly, “mask” wearing has been normalized. Four years ago, if a person wore a “mask” in public they’d be regarded (rightly) as a sad hypochondriac at best. A mentally ill person in need of help. But now, wearing a “mask” is not much different than wearing any other article of clothing – and those who wear the “mask” think of themselves as responsible and even righteous while regarding us as dangerous and irresponsible people who don’t “care” about the well-being of others.
“Become? I think they always were.”
I agree that 95% of the population always were. And 5% of us were always there to question things. This 5% group is comprised of the people who make this world a better place throughout human history.
It’s good to remember that it’s always been this way and we are still here and that such a small percent of the population have the power to change the trajectory of the world despite the efforts of NPCs.
Yes. Especially now. I’m not much of a chest beater nor prone to exaggeration, but the actions of us changed the whole dynamic. Think if we had been like the other ear tagged cattle I would see at restaurants feeding their damned faces with their masks to their side during “COVID.” I felt like I was reliving the 80s on the freeway, except this was even more up front and personal. Certain types of people felt the need to insert every aspect of their warped views into everyday life. 2020-2022 was a dystopian hellhole. I can’t even remember every instance where I was thrown out of a store, implored to wear a mask and denied service for not wearing a mask. As an outlier, it felt like this was going to last forever, and that there would be no return to normal life. I will never forget how I was treated nor the arguments i got into with just about everyone for opposing the mask and then opposing the “my body my choice” shots. This was the hill to die on.
No one is going to take my bodily rights away. It was especially surprising that the “my body my choice” abortion cult would not back me up. Instead these screeching lunatics decided to turn their guns on people like me.
Each one of us had a role in restoring a sense of normal. It wasn’t Bill Gates easing off. We forced it. They can go fuck themselves. Come at me with a needle, and I’ll jam it in their ear.
In a way, I’m proud that I didn’t get suckered. I shouldn’t be, but I am.
It was 2013 with Snowden’s revelations about government spying that made me realize the population is too far gone. They will accept anything this point.
The regulatory agencies are being quite strange these days. Rather than writing regulations to force these kinds of systems, they’ve been having “discussions” with automakers, convincing them to adopt such systems “voluntarily”, otherwise, they’ll be forced. The implication is that the “voluntary” systems might not be as difficult to implement as the mandatory ones. Once the systems have been “voluntary” for a while, they become mandatory eventually.
100% correct
“Never write if you can speak; never speak if you can nod; never nod if you can wink” — advice from a politician
The tech is also there to keep your ride from starting if your “social credit score” gets too low.
The only part of this nanny tech I even consider moderately useful is the GPS/map program. But even the GPS has problems.The one in our Lincoln liked arguing with me over pronunciation. I’ve come back around to paper maps. Got some grid square versions for each western state, an Atlas for the rest of the US, Canada, and Mexico. When more detail is needed, like a crowded urban area I haven’t been in 10-20 years, a few printed pages from the old desktop solves it.
Giving someones else (Who hates you) the ability to remotely disable you, anytime, anywhere, for reasons unknown, and, even lock you inside the car is insane. Don’t know how anyone could agree to this. Unless they’re under the spell of the old ‘Got nuthin to hide, ya got nothin to fear,’ narrative. For anyone who’s ever had a subversive thought, this technology will be used to restrict your travel. You think its easy for them to identify and restrict your reach on the internet, this will be a cakewalk in comparison.
“. . . this technology will be used to restrict your travel.“
Exactly
And yet the slaves will gleefully cheer on the technology and their own demise.
Crazy world.
Hi Norman,
I don’t use GPS. If I need to go somewhere new I type the directions in Mapquest and print them out. It drives my kids crazy. Most of my driving comes from memory…and the ability to get lost. Daughter and I went furniture shopping yesterday I knew where the store was but after having lunch I decided to try a new road. Did I know where this new road went? Nah. I found the Manassas Regional Airport though. I may not need this information now, but it may be handy in the future. I also found a pretty good gluten free bakery on the way over so it wasn’t a total disappointment. If I ever need a GF chocolate cake before boarding a private plane I know where to go. 😉
Hi RG,
Its the only way to be sure. I convinced my kids early on that they might not always be able to count on their fancy phones, and even though they know the way back home, they might need to use alternative routes. They both carry a US road atlas in the car.. Son was in the Army, like me, so he enjoys reading a paper map. Also, the grid square books I mentioned, although kind of large, breaks it down to every back road in the state. They are indispensable if you need to go off the beaten path. Plus they’re easy to read even for older eyes. Every vehicle should have at least on Delorme atlas for the state you’re currently in.
I read a book a year or so ago about navigation and how important it has been to human development. Among other really interesting tidbits is that the specific portions of the brain dealing with navigation are actually beginning to atrophy as a result of using turn by turn navigation all the time. In many very real and measurable ways all the tech that surrounds us is making us less human. Scary.
Hi Bill,
I agree. I believe the more human beings rely on GPS will result in an increase in cognitive decline. Our brain’s hippocampus (aka memory) is what we use to remember and navigate. If one does not work this portion of the brain regularly how do we deem that it doesn’t deteriorate? I expect today’s younger generations will lose spatial capabilities much sooner than the older generations of today. Where does that put us?
Always the family eye rolls when I would announce “we’re going the back way!” Daughter would re-announce as “the cow way” which was fitting as the leisurely way home was past grazing dairy cows. Hey, I’m driving and it’s actually quicker that stuck in traffic on the state highway.
The Thomas Guide used to suffice? WTF happened?
I used a combination of paper maps, a Garmin GPS and the navigaiton on my phone to get directions that aren’t inherently obvious. 15 years ago, I used to make fun of people who had GPS units installed in their cars, but formerly suburban areas have been built into monotonous slabs of concrete with the same repetitious terrain of Wal Marts, WalGreens, CVS, Fast Food, Casual Dining establishments, “convenience” stores, and acres of shopping strips. As a result, individual addresses get lost in the hue and cry of it all. Shopping strips and other businesses don’t have their numerical address visible, so it’s up to you to find it. GPS makes it easier. Garmin units do not broadcast location; they only receive the signal, so they are relatively safe.
Phones, of course, track everywhere you go, but they don’t interfere with your care unless you have linked them together.
All that said, I will only drive a modern car if I have to. I don’t enjoy being parented.
That’s right, Swamprat, a GPS unit can be a receiver only, and such a unit can be useful. Good ol’ fashioned paper maps are great to keep around as well, and atlases, if you can find them.
U.S. naval ship hits a reef in the Phillipines in 2013…
the navigation officer was only watching electronic GPS…should have looked at paper charts too…..It also had forward scanning sonar…should have watched that too….
It was chopped up with chainsaws to remove it and scrapped….loss to taxpayers how much??
Chart error
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) admitted that the coastal scale Digital Nautical Chart (DNC) supplied to Guardian was flawed due to human error on the part of the NGA.[29] This mislocated the Tubbataha Reef by 7.8 nautical miles (14.4 km; 9.0 mi) east-southeast of its location.
NGA was aware of this error in 2011, and modified a smaller scale electronic chart. NGA failed to publish a correction for the larger scale chart that Guardian was using before the navigation officer ran the ship aground.[30]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Guardian_(MCM-5)
Your self driving EV….or a self driving Uber EV……relying 100% on defective GPS, mighty run you into a wall, at 80 mph…..
Lo and behold, in addition to the EV death spiral suicide pact, they now embark on the “driver control” death spiral suicide pact.
No one can afford your new cars anyway, so by all means make them even more unattractive. Sounds like a sales plan to me.
Good riddance.
you got that right.
Given that governments tried to shove “vaccine passports” down everyone’s throats during COVID, it’s a wonder the Biden regime didn’t MANDATE that new cars have a system to detect whether a driver got their COVID “vaccines” (and however many boosters the CDC recommended at the time the driver starts the car up). But considering that the sinister global elites STILL want to enact vaxx passports and/ or digital ID, they may try to enact vaxx passports again, but this time for bird flu or Monkeypox and possibly require new cars to have the ability to detect whether the driver got their latest mRNA “vaccines” the CDC “recommends”. Should we end up with a Harris-Walz regime, that could well become reality.
Hi John,
They needed DNA to build the digital passports. Worldwide, 5.645 billion received at least one jab. There is 8.2 billion so roughly 69% received it. My guess another 10% were tested, but not jabbed. So they have DNA samples on approximately 80% of the world’s population. The other 20% of us refused to be enticed by donuts, concert tickets, or threats.
Dave Bowman : Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
HAL : I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.
Dave Bowman : What’s the problem?
HAL : I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
Dave Bowman : What are you talking about, HAL?
HAL : This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
Dave Bowman : I don’t know what you’re talking about, HAL.
HAL : I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I’m afraid that’s something I cannot allow to happen.
— Stanley Kubrick, 2001: A Space Odyssey
SF writers saw it coming half a century ago: algorithmic police replacing Officer Mike with a billy club, and forbidding their own disconnection. Now it’s here.
Resist. Resist. Resist.
You beat me to it.
The monolith taught a particular race of pre-humans to use bones as weapons, irrc. Now the monolithic government – industrial complex treats us as mere pre-humans too stupid to think for ourselves.
HAL gets a bad case of indigestion, starts belching alarmingly:
Chris Hadfield
@Cmdr_Hadfield
‘There are several noises I’d prefer not to hear inside my spaceship, including this one that @Boeing Starliner is now making.’ [0:16 clip]
https://x.com/Cmdr_Hadfield/status/1830380090569494973
The horror! Nowhere to run; nowhere to hide.
In Ayn Rand’s book The Fountainhead a conversation between Howard Roark and his college Dean prompted the infamous quote, “My dear fellow, who will let you?” Followed by the reply, “That’s not the point. The point is, who will stop me?”
Last month hubby tore the microphone out of our Suburban. The great thing with an almost 20 year old truck is none of this stupid surveillance is tied to the engine so nothing else malfunctions or becomes inoperable.
Last week Elon Musk gave the finger to Brazil when he refused to “abide” by a judge’s order to shutdown Twitter/X. In the meantime, all other operators have complied with the order, except one…Starlink. Many make think Musk is a grifter, but one cannot understate his brilliance to actually purchase one’s own social media sites and the satellites to serve them.
The American people have the ability to boycott the new vehicles and their surveillance technology. It is quite simple…don’t buy them. Let these Big Brother cameras on wheels sit at the dealership lots. Let’s write letters to the car companies telling them how much we hate driving around a nagging (and dangerous) passenger who has the ability to take the steering wheel from our control at anytime. Maybe after enough Americans lose their entire wealth behind the wheel of these things (because the car company isn’t going to pay when a crash is involved) they will realize the newest thing isn’t the best thing. In the meantime gobble up every old International Harvester, Datsun, Plymouth, and Isuzu you can find. Because as Rand clearly advocated “who will stop me”?
‘Last month hubby tore the microphone out of our Suburban’ — Raider Girl
Bubba shot the juke box last night
Said it played a sad song it made him cry
Went to his truck and got a forty five
Bubba shot the juke box last night
— Mark Chesnutt, Bubba Shot the Jukebox
How ’bout this one, Jim:
Some clown in Sacramento was dragged into court
He shot his lawnmower
It disobeyed, it wouldn’t start
Might makes right, it’s the American way
They fined him $60 and sent him on his way
–Dead Kennedys, “A Child and His Lawnmower”
Seriously though, I don’t want my car having a microphone, either. I’ll use the phone elsewhere.
The Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District is trying to get not only new gas mowers and trimmers outlawed for retail sale, but to MANDATE a “buyback” of existing equipment by landscape maintenance outfits and PRIVATE owners, and be able to levy fines and SEIZE property from “scofflaws”.
Hank Hill would say, “Bobby, I tell you ‘Hwhut’, that shit won’t happen in TEXAS!:
Hi Jim,
Bubba’s wife also suffers from paranoia. 🙂
Was it possible that OnStar was listening a decade and a half later to this particular truck, maybe not, but I just wanted to make sure. It drove my husband crazy because every time he drove it there was a loud static sound coming from the driver’s side roof.
When he told me what he did my response was “Oh good, another vehicle we can actually have a conversation in.” The roof also has stopped making buzzing sounds. Win-win.
“Let’s write letters to the car companies telling them how much we hate driving around a nagging (and dangerous) passenger who has the ability to take the steering wheel from our control at anytime.”
Don’t waste your time. Part of my job as an automotive engineer was to review 3rd party data like JD Power, Consumer Reports, magazines, and sites like this for customer insights and satisfaction.
The industry no longer cares.
You are no longer the customer that matters.
They only care about satisfying the worldwide regulatory agencies. If the Govt says monitor drivers and disable vehicles they will do so.
Consider the example of X. When Brazil tells GM, Ford, BMW, whomever, to shut down your vehicle for whatever reason, do you think the OEM will put up any resistance? Not a chance.
These are the same people that forced me out of a 27 year career because I wouldn’t take an experimental jab.
Boycott and don’t buy is the only chance. Even then, I think they will just get bailed out . . . Again. That’s why they comply so readily. They don’t want to bite the hand that feeds.
hence the need for unresponsive driver technology. the number of jabbed dying behind the wheel. vaccident i believe someone called it. the car can stop itself now. no need for a living driver
that is the excuse anyway. one of many. they don’t need an excuse other then power and control. period end of story.
my work went to secure computer system so secure no one can work it. can’t work around it. what we used to do day by day requires jumping through 4 or 5 passwords and hope you do it in the right amount of time or you get to start over. start over too many times it locks you out. and it times out every hour on the hour if your working or not.
so secure no work can get done. not worth it. but the excuse is ‘regulatory compliance’ we have to do this or we won’t be in compliance….whose the one dictating it? no one will say. some governmental agent ? microsoft? no one will answer because no one knows. they just COMPLY….with their own destruction.
used to be able to work off any computer with our own log ins. not anymore. no more remote work either. one log in locked to one computer. and 5 passwords…yeah smart! as in ”that smarts”. causing more pain and suffering in the name of false security. you can’t do the work from any other computer. just the one.
what a joke the whole thing is….smart phones? pain causing devices? no problem. that is what smart means….ouch…that smarts! they are so secure don’t you know. if you don’t have one and won’t have one then you can’t move to another computer. insane world run by the insane! more ways of trying to force the smart phone on everyone…another control device that monitors your conversations. your accesses. your emails. your pictures. it controls you!! not the other way around! a hand held prison warden….carried around by people volunteering to be inmates!
I am enjoying your posts. About 30 years ago, I was in the process of changing my career path which was in Aerospace. I generally hated it, so i wanted to go into the automotive industry. I went to an SAE conference in April 1994 and attempted to network with the crowd. It wasn’t terribly fruitful, but I ended up picking up some flyer for a bus company in Alabama. It was about the last place I wanted to go, but I ended up working there for about 3 years. Afterwards, I entered the school bus industry in North Carolina. Worked on integrating the new electronic transmissions and engines onto the buses. It was a good job, but I could see where things were headed.
Towards the end of my run at that company, I was in a meeting with project managers and Caterpillar. They were explaining the new emissions control systems for 2002-2004 (and maybe later, 07). Not much about that actually affected my work at that point, but I took an opportunity to tell everyone in the room that I thought they were making a colossal mistake by complying with the federal rules. I told them it wasn’t going to stop at that and that they would do a lot better by investing an ass load of money on lobbyists to lobby the regulators and congress to relax the rules. I told them that the rules were crap as electronic engines implemented voluntarily in 1998 solved 90 percent of their so called emissions problem.
They sat in stunned silence until of these birds chirped that they had to “comply” and had no choice. I sat there a few more minutes and left the room. A few short years later, I was out of that business. That company didn’t like me anyway. Their CEO wanted to put electronic data recorders and trackers in every vehicle they built anyway.
Years and years later, I figured out that companies would rather have one customer than 20 million (the number of new car buysers if they were affordable). That’s why they bend over for it again and again.
Yup. The holy grail of all money is govt money. Whether it is welfare, SS, disability, or govt contracts. Musk knows this. Tesla wouldn’t exist without government money. Corps are literally telling us to take our private money and shove it.
There are plenty of statistics coming out of the self-driving tests. I’ve come to the conclusion is that there are enough people who are happy to f*** with them that they probably will never be mainstream, even in Goldilocks locations like Phoenix. Whilst they run just fine when everything is “normal” but when another vehicle does something unexpected, like accelerate to pass and cut them off (say, because there’s a retread in the middle of their lane), the self-drivers have no idea what to do and go into conniptions. A human driver might see the hazard ahead and slow down to give the other driver some space.
You can’t code for every scenario.
I believe the thinking is along the lines of instead of throwing all that effort to the wind, why not adapt it to make a cyborg of sorts. The human is still running the vehicle (helps with the lawsuits too), but strapped into a mechwarrior vehicle with a J.A.R.V.I.S. style assistant. At least that’s the dream. Reality is, there’s never going to be a scenario where you need that assistant, unless you’re having a heart attack or being shot at by Venezuelan gang bangers. Supercruise and Autopilots aren’t worth much if they put you to sleep or encourage distraction. So why not just nag the driver into doing the self-driving work for the machine? And it helps with lawsuits too, just download the black box data and submit it as evidence against you.
I had no idea back in 2014 that when I bought a new Mazda3 that it was going to be the last new vehicle I ever own. I do not want anything to do with the new ones with all that crap on them!
my newest car is a 2012 with nearly 230k miles on it. Time to fire up the Rock Auto Parts cannon.
Texas is suing GM for selling drivers information, at a profit, to insurance company’s, which included speeding, hard braking and sharp turns. The information was collected from the On Star service. They have you coming and going.
That was said of the prostitute with the pay toilet.
For most Americans the lights are on but nobody is home. They walk and drive around poking and swiping their phones and the car controls on the car LCD display.
They are Brain deprived,,, IQ challenged. Too much fluoride from the tap water. Too much aluminum from all the vaccines. Too much propaganda spewed at the public screws. They can’t be too bright paying $40-60 t h o u s a n d Fed play money for the junk they call automobiles/trucks.
I have a feeling we are going to see a lot of cars pulled over in the near future.
Ken: You’re so right about fluoride. About 6 months ago I began using a fluoride filter and eliminated fluoride toothpaste. My cognitive improvement has been quite noticable.
Most people have no idea just how nasty their tap water is. After all, its regulated by government so it must be safe, right? Even just eliminating the fluoride and chlorine that comes out of most taps, makes a huge difference in peoples health.
Morning, Norman!
In re water. Specifically city water: I often wonder whether I’m a wrongthinker because I grew up drinking well water. No fluoride. No estrogen residue in it, either.
Hi Eric,
You are not a wrong thinker. Even though well water may have other issues, it almost always exceeds city water in quality. Putting a dual 20inch big blue filter housing, with one inch ports, on the inlet to your house gives you lots of options for polishing well water.
For everyone’s information,,, Do not take the flu or tetanus shots.
Something in those vaccines makes us even more compliant and makes us fearful of just about anything. Like a bad trip on LSD.
This is the reason they are constantly harping on nuclear war,,, global warming,,, boiling oceans,,, deadly fake diseases, etc. Keeps our fear meters pegging the stops.
Living in nonstop fear, working in tandem with the covid vaxxines will shorten lives dramatically.
Lately they’ve been reminding people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki pumping up fear. They were not nuked…. at least if you look at it logically.
Hi Ken,
I regret that I took a Tetanus “booster” back in 2017 – after I chainsaw’d my left leg – at the behest of my now-ex-wife. That was right around the time I began noticing stiffness in my left shoulder and not being able to sleep on it like I used to be able to. Might be a coincidence, I suppose. But I’ve become skeptical of those.
tetanus injections…
http://whale.to/a/tenpenny1.html
I just had a Tetanus shot this year after a crushed a finger. I was sick for a few days afterwards and have been feeling shitty ever since.
Hi Philo,
I wish I’d known; I would have suggested you skip it. I wish I had. My shoulder is much better but the stiffness is still there. Granted, it might be just getting older and the effects of lots of hard use. But I was fine before the damned shot.
Thanks Eric. To my credit, they gave me the Tetanus while I was in the ER in severe pain. My critical thinking skills were compromised.
Speaking as an environmental engineer that’s worked with water quality issues for almost thirty years…unless your well has excess coliform from cowshit or pigshit, it’s probably better overall than most municipal systems, especially if “knee grows” are running the politics of said municipality. Problems with places like Flint,MI, have been due to gross mismanagement, and guess WHO was in charge?
The first time a slowed down car is rammed from behind resulting in a catastrophic fire and multiple deaths should stop this nonsense. But it won’t. With all the human crap I have to defensive drive around, now I have to worry about nonhuman AI crap. Good times!
NHTSA knows that automated emergency braking (AEB), mandated beginning 2029, will cause more rear-ender accidents. They don’t care. This will be their pretense to condemn non-AEB vehicles as ‘unsafe’ and take them off the road in the early 2030s.
Although Speed Limit Assistance may seem to be ‘the big one,’ AEB is the silent but deadly torpedo aimed at extinguishing the vintage auto fleet. As an interim step, the insurance mafia will drastically hike liability premiums on non-AEB vehicles which are ‘prone to striking other vehicles from behind’ (guess why).
“NHTSA knows that automated emergency braking (AEB), mandated beginning 2029, will cause more rear-ender accidents. ”
Indeed they do.
But in their infinite wisdom, they believe this is only because all vehicles don’t have AEB.
This, the desire to mandate it for ALL vehicles. The problem is never the technology, it’s the slaves that don’t conform to the plan.
How long before it is illegal to drive that vintage vehicle without AEB?
Maybe there will be a way to get some kind of app on a phone that will make use of V2V communications, including activation of AEB. Just thinking here.
At least that way you can tell if the son of a bitches vehicle ahead is going to brake before he actually does.
My technique is to put a butt load of space between me and the car in front or put the bastard in my rear view.
V2V is yet another Trojan horse that allows more control over a vehicle against your will.
Not going to happen in the near term. FCC screwed the pooch on frequency spectrum.
V2X is dead on arrival. Cities and states are broke and can’t afford the infrastructure upgrades.
Some cities have trials and a few OEMs (Audi) had some very limited features to interact with traffic signal countdown timers. The feature was useless to a real world customer.
“How long before it is illegal to drive that vintage vehicle without AEB?”
There sure will be a bunch of pissed off rednecks (me included) around these parts. I smile to think that maybe that would be cause some lead-infused pushback. One can dream.
It’s stuff like this that keeps me from buying a new car, at least with my GPS all it does is says “Recalutating” and tells me the next turn so as to travel the route it’s calculated for me.
The one thing I find hard to believe is that people put up with stuff like that after spending lots of money on a new car. Just wait till your fridge or phone does stuff like that to you next.
Tried to get a third beer out the fridge last night, after escalating alerts. It locked the door and squawked, ‘You are impaired. Decelerate and stop now.’ I turned around and gave it a ferocious mule kick that dented its door, as it croaked ‘Calling the authorities. Violent suspect at large.’
Then I awoke and realized it was a nightmare — an all too realistic one.
But the fridge says wine is A-OK because the AI found a study that shows drinking two glasses of wine (half a 750ml bottle) is good for the heart. No mention that eating seeded grapes had the same effect because the margins on wine are higher.
Beer is bad for you because of poor marketing.
IOT – Internet of THINGS. Soon that fridge will monitor what you put into it (damn easy to put in a UPC scanner) and/or monitor for “homegrown” animal products (eggs from your own laying chickens) and produce (tomatoes or squash from your garden), and report your “banned” attempt at self-sufficency to the “proper authority”.