Has Your Car Got Too Much Tech?
Tuesday, 7. September 2010
I’ve only had my wheels for a couple of years now, but I wouldn’t change them for the world. Sure its ten years old but it’s reliable and does all the things I need it to do. This is namely transport me from A to B and occasionally keep the rain off my head. I get no end of mocking from my mates however as their cars are a lot newer and have more gadgets than the inspector himself. I can appreciate that car technology has its place, but I can’t help thinking that most if it is for show and in the long run, only causes more hassle and grief. Here a just a selection of reasons why I reject tech in my car
1.) More things to break. I find myself endlessly trying to calm my friend down on the phone when his keyless entry system decides it doesn’t like the look of him and locks him out for hours on end. Or consoling a mate whose parking sensor fell asleep during a vital parking moment. When all is said an done, tech will malfunction eventually and the more of the stuff you have, the more frequently it will cause you to pull your hair out
2.) Over dependence. Quiz your grandpa about how he possibly managed to navigate his old Triumph Stag around hundreds of miles of road and he’ll tell you that he used an old compass to guide him and head-based mathematical logarithms to work out how much fuel he had used. At the same time he’ll explain how he always had enough fuel and getting lost wasn’t in his vocabulary. He may be stretching the truth a little, but I would put money on the fact a higher percentage of road users run into problems such as these nowadays. The reason being that relying on a sat nav system with 60 million roads in its data center might sound like a good idea, but you soon realise why its not when the Lincoln Road you end up at, is 150 miles from the Lincoln Road you wanted to get to.
3.) Theft. Maybe I’m a grumpy old man already, but from my point of view a car with less shiny gadgets is less likely to attract the attention of criminals. Criminals are only human and they want to be listening to Dolby surround sound as they hotwire you car and have a perfectly air conditioned 15 degrees environment to drive in whilst being chased by the cops. It’s for these reasons, as well a few other perhaps, that more expensive and tech-heavy cars get stolen or broken into more often. This can however be a decision the thieves come to regret in a car chase with cops as the car’s built in speed limiter kicks in and the sat nav guides them down a dead end housing estate.
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