But 20 years ago was 2005. What's changed on a modern car since 2005? There's obviously a lot more safety features (and these have increasingly been part of the crashworthiness rating cars are given). But if you crash into a wall at 40mph, how much stronger are they?
A lot. Probably the biggest single change was the introduction of the small overlap crash test by the IIHS. It turns out that the standard frontal crash tests are quite unrealistic; in most frontal accidents, the driver swerves to avoid something but clips the corner, rather than just slamming into something head-on. Cars designed to perform well in the standard frontal crash test often performed miserably in the small overlap test.
Compare the same model before and after the small overlap test:
I wonder if there's even any citations that can directly show that a 2024 car is "much" safer than a 2004 car. Without relying on NHTSA's safety rating system, which is an indirect proxy at most (and probably has changed multiple times for "reasons"). And without being confounded by changes in regulatory measures.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_...
Autos are designed around and for the roads they will serve, not vice versa. This is the bane of auto manufacturers who want to make one tail light housing for all their cars in all their markets.
it's a bit more easy to read data comparing for example safety in Euro market vs American market (there are fundamental differences in safety thoery; lighting, ride heighgt, weight, engine size etc. As opposed to looking at changing trends in one market over 20 years, which are largely stylistic.)
Pre-2000 satedy improvements were heavily about WHEN you get into an accident...
Post 2000 it is heavily is heavily DON'T get into an accident, and it's heavily electronic. Anti-lock breaks, lane change vehicle detectors, unintentional lane change warnings, auto-breaking before collisions.
I certainly agree with the general vibe that cars do too much now, but I'd rather have a dumbified 2010+ish car
With the absolute slightest bit of fog, excessive humidity, rain or snow by Mazda tells me one of its radar systems isn't operable and to please drive safely.
In the EU, it's illegal to sell cars that don't have back camera, not beeping if seatbelt not fastened, and not beeping if speed limit is exceeded.
The next car I am going to buy is probably going to be older than my current one.
I've also come to this bizarre conclusion. Cars are rapidly regressing. I currently drive an '09, and yearly maintenance costs have begun to approach the value of the car. I'm not sure how long I can economically keep it on the road, but what would I replace it with? A '24 Driving-IoT-Nighmare?
Depending on your locale, you're going to need to replace all suspension, steering, exhaust, frame peices etc. on that 09' car you bought used for 6. Will quickly approach 20k in time and money, and at that point, most people bite the bullet and deal with new car bullshit/payments.
Now at 15 years and 200k km still running strong, with less than 300€ service costs yearly.
I live in salt belt in US, have a 14 year old hatchback. This year alone I have had to replace 2 of the 6 control arms, rear rotors, all pads, parking brake cable (ugh), strut/shock assembly up front , clutch and brake masters, rear wheel hubs, trailing arms. That alone is like 4k in my time, nevermind the parts or if I brought them to a shop.
last year I did clutch job, vent/purge valves, intake cleaning, timing job....easily 5k
I am very jealous you have somehow avoided these things with the Clio. Idk how mazda managed to make my hatch out of seemingly rust.
Largest parts I had to replace so far were exhaust (60€ for part) last year and exhaust hatch (I don't know if that's the correct english term for that, 80€ for part) this year. Brake pads I had to change twice so far, but it was also pretty cheap.
With my mother I have a joke that rebuilding my clio from scratch would probably cost me less than tire change on her merc.
The only annoyance I have with it is that it's eating through light bulbs at annoying pace, since electricity in the older clios tends to be a bit funky. But okay, that's a 5min change usually.
Even OEM headunits usually just consume a standard composite video input and switch to it when it has a signal.
This information is valid up until at least 2020, but it might be changing as cars get more advanced cameras and stupid-er head units. I bet Tesla just uses their existing cameras.
>not beeping if seatbelt not fastened
Also trivial to do with analogue electronics, which we have done for decades.
speed limit warnings are a dead end though. Impossible to do without some sort of technology to know what the "current" speed limit is.
I especially love the collision detection that goes "BIBIBIBIBIBI" and the screen goes red saying "BREAK NOW!". All of this happens regularly when I'm dodging parked cars in small streets at very low speed. The message appears about half a second too late anyway (assuming I have instant reaction time, which I doubt). I'm glad it doesn't break automatically at least.
Also it reads speeds signs but it has no idea when they no longer apply, or doesn't read the new one, or reads a speed sign from an adjacent road, or sometimes just imagines it.
Another annoying thing was that in order to use the navigation from the car, you first had to agree to obey the traffic rules or something. I already do that by participating in traffic.
I don't think this incessant beeping for every little thing, nor requiring clicking though extra screens, is useful and I doubt it adds anything to safety. It's distracting and annoying and I start thinking about why the car is beeping this time, instead of focusing on the traffic.
That's the really big problem with this design: the car should not draw attention to itself; my attention should be on the road. Also, when it does beep, it should at the very least make clear why, and you should be able to turn it off.
I'm all for the extra safety, but if they make safety too annoying, people will start looking for workarounds.
Next time you go to the grocery store look at how many carts don't get put away. The exact same people who do that will freak out and start a war if their car gets scratched by a loose cart.
Don't believe my takes? Go to a local city or school board meeting and see the utter insanity that comes from people that you will be shocked to learn are a middle manager at some company or own their own small and successful business.
Some people genuinely don't get that the world isn't about them, and I think we have drastically underestimated the percentage.
That’s one very stupid way to die.
I can understand not wanting the government to decide how they live their life, who they can and can't marry, how they should identify, which bathroom to use, etc. But I'd think no-cost life-saving stuff is not a hard decision. Same with vaccines.
My car can't tell the difference between a person and my backpack on the passenger seat, but it dings regardless.
Wear your seatbelt.
The car reads signs, and beeps everytime it detects a change in speed limit. If you go over the speed limit, even if its 1 km/h the car starts beeping as well.
I never drive really fast, when the car says I'm driving 1 KM over the limit my GPS speed usually is 5 below. This makes the signals extra annoying.
They should have used beeps when you're 10 or more over the speed limit or something like that so you don't get spammed with notifications all the time. The system being as it is, I'm 100% sure I will get it removed by a tuning shop.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CarsAustralia/comments/10d4g0b/spee...
But for a car to start beeping (or worse, interfering), they'd better use that margin of error in the other direction.
How we allow massive touch screens in Tesla's and other modern cars is beyond me.
Of all the signals of "I'm getting elderly," who knew I'd first start feeling like this from trying to use a car?
IMO the chime, if anything, decreases safety (it interrupts the driver's attention)
Your low tech car will feel like a emotional prison. Of all the annoying modernities you want the worst one? If you want to make a deal with the devil I would choose rear camera.
Think about it. All the headache and time to pair Bluetooth devices over a dead simple connector.
I would aim for a pre 2016 car. I think that has some margin to the Internet of Shit product lines?
Conversely, I pair my phone once when I get the car and I never need to worry about messing with it again; it's just connected when the car starts. I don't even need to take my device out of my pocket or bag.
On top of that I get hands-free calling if someone calls while I'm driving, I get steering wheel media controls, I get voice controlled media selection (play playlist foo, play artist bar, etc.)
Additionally, modern Bluetooth devices have very little friction in my experience.
However if more than one person will use the car (incl. as passanger) the annoyance of Bluetooth is even worse.
We have a dongle in the car that is protected by a sworn oath to never be removed from the cabinet along with some charger cables.
There is just so much stuff that can make the abstraction of automation leak and you have to spend more time fixing it this one time than saved in the total lifetime of the car with a simple cable.
A USB to jack left fixed in the car is not much of an imposition. Even less so if it can be combined with a 12V adapter for charging.