Nothing is worse than a tracker that never stops talking:
"Modern car technology shows an ability to annoy" by Beth Teitell | Globe Staff, March 13, 2013
Shannon Taylor and her 2013 Chevy Suburban have been together for only a month, but already the car is on her nerves. It interrupts conversations to announce traffic jams and nags her to fill up the gas tank. It has even sparked arguments with her husband over how much to rely on the rear-mounted cameras when backing up.
“It’s annoying,” the Hingham mom said.
In Whitman, Susan Hamn’s car, a 2011 Jeep Liberty, is also a noodge.
I love it when I see reporters literally internalize the values of their owners.
It starts “beeping, beeping, beeping” if she turns the car off without instantly shutting off the headlights. “Give me a second!” she scolds it.
Somehow, the car has become its own backseat driver.
Worse in fact; it's become a dashboard driver.
In an attempt to increase safety, attract young and tech-obsessed buyers, and comply with government mandates, automakers have added an enormous number of collision-avoidance and infotainment features to new vehicles.
But some of the new systems can be so intrusive that drivers are experiencing mild road rage toward their own cars.
“I have to keep reminding myself that it’s a machine,” said Anne-Marie Aigner, an Allston publicist with a 2012 Prius.
The trouble? Her car has difficulty understanding her requests for directions, trying to send her to Brooklyn, N.Y., for example, rather than her desired destination of Brookline. Aigner knows she should not yell at a navigation system, but she cannot help herself.
“I can’t believe I’m having conversations with my dashboard,” she groused.
On the plus side, early research shows that crash-avoidance systems — brakes that automatically stop a car and do not rely on the driver, electronic stability control, and adaptive headlights that turn with the steering wheel — hold a lot of promise for preventing collisions or reducing their severity, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a nonprofit funded by insurers.
Automakers are producing higher-quality vehicles than ever, according to a 2012 study by J.D. Powers and Associates. But as infotainment systems appear in a growing number of vehicles, there was one notable exception.
“Audio, entertainment, and navigation problems have increased by 8 percent from 2011,” the study reported. “This continues a recent trend, as problems in this category have increased by 45 percent since 2006 while other categories have improved by 24 percent, on average.”
Even Dan Gage, the publicist for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, recognizes that there are “some idiosyncracies with every car that people get frustrated with.” But all the guidance and warnings — along with other safety features — do seem to make a difference: fatalities and serious injuries resulting from accidents are down 25 percent since 2005, Gage said.
But as complex dashboard screens become another presence in the car, even some kids are getting irritated.
Then I expect accidents to start going back up.
North Attleboro grade schoolers Will and Ben DiBattista regularly shush their dad’s 2012 Range Rover’s navigation system. On the way to hockey practice, the system has the nasty habit of talking over the songs they play to get pumped up — like “Eye of the Tiger” — to announce that the car needs to make a right in a half a mile . . . 700 feet . . . 500 feet . . . and so on.
In August, Consumer Reports captured a glimpse of driver frustration in a piece called “Why the MyFord Touch control system stinks.”
“MyFord Touch leaves the interiors of fitted models almost completely absent any conventional knobs or buttons,” the piece read. “Instead, it offers a variety of different ways to enter commands: flush capacitive switches on the center stack, a big center touchscreen, steering-wheel controls, and voice commands. But none are well designed, and combined they make the cars feel really complicated — especially when trying to perform the most common audio and climate adjustments.”
In Hull, Jennifer Slater gets emotional talking about her 2009 GMC Envoy. She says the sensors “cried wolf” so often — with warnings about icy roads and swerving when she was not driving on icy roads or swerving — that she recently vowed not to go to the expense of taking her car into the shop every time an indicator light goes on.
“I’m not playing its game anymore,” she said about her car....
Meanwhile, with studies showing consumers want lots of technology in their cars, automakers are loading up.
We will fight to the death to preserve our $elf-impo$ed $hackles of $urveillance! Gimme my gizmo!
“In the ’50s and ’60s, car makers would brag about horsepower,” said Justin Berkowitz, East Coast bureau chief for Car and Driver magazine. “Today, it’s about the technology.”
Indeed, automakers’ websites boast not just of high-tech safety advances, but about features not previously associated with cars. Toyota’s Entune smart-phone enabled system, for example, allows a driver to tell her dashboard to check sports scores or stock prices.
Just can't wait, huh?
But some drivers do not want to be in constant communication with their vehicles....
Spy riding shotgun should just shut up!
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