FYI: Driving is driving us to the grave.
Life expectancy at birth declined steeply in the U.S. in 2015 and 2016, a new British Journal of Medicine study reports — a finding that was attributed partly to the opioid crisis, but also to America’s ongoing traffic violence problem.
In 16 peer nations studied, life expectancy at birth was fairly steady over the same period, but dropped by .2 years in the United States — a decline that is two-and-a-half times worse than the dip in 2012.
Regards,
Ted
https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/08/24/americas-car-culture-is-literally-shortening-your-life-study/
Comments
Vehicles today have many more distractions for the driver than even 5 or 10 years ago. Why do some require driver to navigate a touch-screen for simple things like turning the AC on or off, adjusting the interior temperature or operating the audio system? What’s wrong with old fashioned turn-knobs and moveable toggle switches?
Some are worse than others. I typically rent cars 2 or 3 times yearly when traveling, and so have a pretty decent sense of how the technology has been changing over the years (for the worse). Some worse than others. For 2018, Honda listened to numerous complaints and reinstituted knobs for some of the (previously touch) audio controls on the Accord - a big advance. And I like that the auto-temp controls are operated by turn knob as well. I do love the dash-mounted screen for viewing and operating the audio - but have had to learn not to let it distract me from the road.
I’d never talk on a cell phone or text while driving - as too many do now. But - damn - just about any car you buy nowadays has these built in distractions that are hard to avoid. Government mandates so many aspects of our cars (and lives) - but somehow allowed this increasing threat to safety to slip by. How's the BMW @Ted re distractions? Any notable problems?
Under "Must-Haves" are: "Knobs for volume, tuning, and power for the audio system ... because touch-screen only controls ... are distracting." It puts these right up there with safety features like automatic emergency braking.
In case you want to plan your rentals by how distracting their controls are, here's CR's (Nov. 2017) table of most/least distracting infotainment systems. FWIW, BMW came out in the middle.
https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/most-and-least-distracting-infotainment-systems/
Re the Cutless Supreme - If you don’t want it, you can ship it out here!
Imagine it’s already got a couple nice Hollywoods. If not, I know a good man at a local muffler shop.
A beauty for sure. I read the Wikepedia article. Suspect your car is an ‘86 or ‘87 from the photos. I didn’t realize the Cutless was ever that big. (And, I believe it was considered “mid-size” in that day.) Those big cars rode like a dream. Around ‘75 the big 3 began taking off weight and trying to convince the public the new lighter cars were equal to the old heavier ones they were replacing. But they clearly weren’t. One of the first of the new lighter breed I remember, for some reason, was the Ford Grenada.
Well, Sir ... Enjoy. Glad you don’t have to subject that nice car to our salt covered Michigan roads in the winter. However, we locals do appreciate that at least the snow and ice fills in some of our pot holes for a few months - providing a smoother ride.
Sorry about that. None of those problems that I'm aware of. (Just finished a 8-9 hour drive to the Door Penninsula).
Biggest thing is if a car in front pulls off onto the shoulder suddenly it senses that as an imminent collision and briefly slams on the brakes. Not a big deal however. Recovers quickly. It has auto steer which I love out on the open road (reads the center line) - but you do need to keep a slight hold on the steering wheel or it gets angry and rattles the steering wheel to see if you're awake. However, when all is said and done, I'm afraid there's enough loose nuts out there on the roads to easily defeat whatever safety features they build in.
There's a setting giving you 4 choices for how far you like to follow the car in front of you. I've set it for 4 car lengths. So on cruise, it slows automatically and follows the car in front at a safe speed as you approach. I guess I'd just kick cruise off briefly when passing on 2 lane roads, - but you don't need to. I'm not thrilled with the cheaper 4 speaker audio. However, running it through an equalizer app on the iPad I get pretty good sound. Anybody looking at cars, with those integrated audio & screen set ups, you can't just go to an audio shop and have them yank it out and put in something better in like you used to. So, you're pretty much married to what comes with the car.
Just some rambling thoughts.
Thanks @Ted for posting something related to cars, I'll try to get to the one you posted today on Ford trucks later.