# Smart cars and dumbass consumers **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 30, 2012, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smart-cars-and-dumbass-consumers/636293 "2012-09-30T07:27:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smart-cars-and-dumbass-consumers/636293/41 "2012-10-01T00:41:04Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Am I the only one stunned to see a 1999 join date? It’s a really, REALLY old sock. Poised like a terrorist cell it was, with no knowledge of its secret weapon’s epic fail. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smart-cars-and-dumbass-consumers/636293/42 "2012-10-01T02:04:44Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Just snap the reigns. The horse knows where to go. The reins. ‘Reigns’ is something quite different. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smart-cars-and-dumbass-consumers/636293/43 "2012-10-01T02:23:23Z")
I’m [del]not[/del] surprised you took such umbrage with my comment, Klaatu! I really thought that a car featuring the unskewed polls would be right up your alley. Think about how convenient and reassuring it would be to warm up your car in the morning, and have the unskewed polls reported to you in your favorite conservative pundit’s voice? Smart cars are for everyone! ---
**Author:** ![dzeiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/46a35a/32.png) [@dzeiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dzeiger)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smart-cars-and-dumbass-consumers/636293/44 "2012-10-01T03:44:18Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > I was thinking about this the other day. I figure in this day and age, things like the brakes, transmission, engine etc…should just effin work. Anything they tell you in a few seconds in the commercials is A)not going to do the technology involved in all those things any justice and B)Most people don’t really care. > On top of that, you can go to the manufacturers website and learn all about those things. Now, sure, maybe Honda has a transmission that’s superior to Ford’s or Ford’s braking system is miles better then Toyota (I really don’t know), but as long as the both stop and go and will continue to stop and go for the next few years, most consumers are more concerned about things like this car having Pandora or that one having heated seats. The differences that they’ll actually notice. I think you pretty much have it here. I’d bet that if you took a Toyota, and changed all the styling and whatnot to make it visually indistinguishable from a Honda, the vast majority of people wouldn’t know the difference between it and a real Honda. If a manufacturer really had something that they felt was a major difference from other cars in their class in actual fundamental performance categories, I suspect they would, in fact, mention it in their advertisement. If your product is not substantially different from your competitors in it’s basic function, then you either compete on price, which is often a catastrophic race to the bottom, or you find cosmetic differences to focus on. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smart-cars-and-dumbass-consumers/636293/45 "2012-10-01T04:20:59Z")
I hate being distracted by our GPS, so I give it a time out in the glovebox until I really need it. My wife worries that we’ll get lost without it, so I promise her that the minute we are I’ll take it out. I’ve never let it out of the glovebox. Anecdote/sneak brag: I was driving some guys through a city foreign to all of us, we decided to go back to a used bookstore we’d seen, and they asked “Whoa, why are you turning here, and crossing this bridge?” Before I could explain, one of them said “It’s because _digs_ is a graphic designer.”\* “Huh?”\* said I, echoing everyone else. The guy explained: “The whole time we’ve been driving around this town, we’ve just been looking out the windows. But digs has been building a map in his head, so he knows where the river is, how far apart the bridges are, and where the bookstore is.” It was a revelation that that’s what I do, and that other people don’t do that. So if you need the GPS, use it. But if you can use a map, or make your own, you’ll have a sense of accomplishment (and no annoying voice telling you what to do). ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smart-cars-and-dumbass-consumers/636293/46 "2012-10-01T10:46:55Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > The reins. ‘Reigns’ is something quite different. The horse is from royal blood, so either is correct. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smart-cars-and-dumbass-consumers/636293/47 "2012-10-01T11:35:31Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > The reins. ‘Reigns’ is something quite different. And thus my clever dig is undermined by a typo I would normally spot easily. ---
**Author:** ![iftheresaway](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ecae2f/32.png) [@iftheresaway](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iftheresaway)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smart-cars-and-dumbass-consumers/636293/48 "2012-10-01T11:53:15Z")
> [@digs](#): > > I hate being distracted by our GPS, so I give it a time out in the glovebox until I really need it. My wife worries that we’ll get lost without it, so I promise her that the minute we are I’ll take it out. > > I’ve never let it out of the glovebox. > > [snip] > > So if you need the GPS, use it. But if you can use a map, or make your own, you’ll have a sense of accomplishment (and no annoying voice telling you what to do). I know you’re not trying to be snarky here, but as someone who is very much incapable of making a map in my head, or following a paper map without a lot of turning the paper around and getting confused, getting around with a GPS provides plenty of a sense of accomplishment. The advent of easy to use, smart-phone based GPS has quite literally opened up the world for me. I live just outside St. Louis (12 miles from my house to the arch), and before I had access to GPS, I never drove there. Ever. Highways are scary enough to me as it is, and in a large city with no sense of directions whatsoever, getting lost was too scary to contemplate. These days, I know I’ll always be able to find my way home, and that’s given me the confidence to take meetings with clients in the city, do my Christmas shopping on the Loop, visit my husband at work, etc. When my son needed to go to Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital for a minor procedure, I was able to take him myself instead of making my husband take a day off work. Believe me when I say that my sense of accomplishment that day was huge. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smart-cars-and-dumbass-consumers/636293/49 "2012-10-01T18:25:07Z")
In light of the known dangers of “distracted driving” (texting, cellphone use etc.), it bothers me that automakers are cramming their cars with more and more shit that will divert dumbass drivers attention from actually driving the vehicle safely. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smart-cars-and-dumbass-consumers/636293/50 "2012-10-01T19:02:40Z")
My GPS is voice-enabled, so there’s even less distraction there. And besides, I usually have my SO set it from the passenger seat. But here’s where it’s useful. I went down to NYC a week ago to get to the Met. Well, when we got there something like SIX CITY blocks had been closed off for a marathon (AAAARGH). Inside those six city blocks was the parking garage we’d been heading for. Inside those six city blocks was also the second parking garage the GPS had found for us. However, the third parking garage GPS found for us was open. Without GPS, it’d have been a lot harder. I never understand anti-technology people, anyway. You can always make use of it somehow. And if you don’t like it, don’t adopt it! ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smart-cars-and-dumbass-consumers/636293/51 "2012-10-01T19:02:50Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Unless you have every road in the U.S. memorized, I don’t see what your fucking point is. You said you used maps back then too. A GPS is just a map as well with the smarts to know where you are on it and how to get from there to where you are going. There is nothing manly or admirable about using a paper map over a GPS. A GPS is cheaper and better that keeping updated maps of a whole region or the whole country in your car at all times. To prefer the old way in this case is just a symptom Oldtimer’s disease. A portable GPS isn’t even part of the car so I don’t see what your problem with it is. The best thing about GPS, IMO, is that it will recalculate your route if you make a wrong turn or decide to take a little detour. Before GPS those created really awkward situations, especially the former. Even if one figured out a route very carefully on a paper map, if a wrong turn was made somewhere it was easy to get totally lost. ---
**Author:** ![Turek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/turek/32/18782_2.png) [@Turek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turek)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smart-cars-and-dumbass-consumers/636293/52 "2012-10-01T19:24:54Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > Smart cars are for everyone! I dunno about that. They’re pretty tiny! ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smart-cars-and-dumbass-consumers/636293/53 "2012-10-01T19:26:22Z")
> [@Morgenstern](#): > > Being a pilot I’m a pretty fair map reader, yet my GPS is invaluable. It’s portable, not in the dash, but it works quite well. When I’m out of town, on a strange freeway with other freeways crossing left and right, I really love that little voice telling me I still have 1/2 mile before exit. Ever try looking for a building number in a heavy commercial area? It’s much easier having your GPS tell you your destination is on your right. And there’s the fun factor, I like pushing some of the buttons and seeing my altitude and ground speed. I’m a little confused. Do you drive Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, or do you find businesses with your airplane? ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smart-cars-and-dumbass-consumers/636293/54 "2012-10-01T19:28:21Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > In light of the known dangers of “distracted driving” (texting, cellphone use etc.), it bothers me that automakers are cramming their cars with more and more shit that will divert dumbass drivers attention from actually driving the vehicle safely. Many factory installed system will not allow route inputs if the car is moving. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smart-cars-and-dumbass-consumers/636293/55 "2012-10-01T19:34:06Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > I’m a little confused. Do you drive Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, or do you find businesses with your airplane? Yeah that altitude got me too. I think he means “altitude above sea level” as in how high the mountain is that he is on. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smart-cars-and-dumbass-consumers/636293/56 "2012-10-01T19:35:06Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > In light of the known dangers of “distracted driving” (texting, cellphone use etc.), it bothers me that automakers are cramming their cars with more and more shit that will divert dumbass drivers attention from actually driving the vehicle safely. I found that out quickly when I test-drove a Prius recently. In the center of the dash was an LCD screen with so much flashing and animation, it looked like a “YOU ARE THE ONE MILLIONTH VISITOR!!!” website banner ad. I wanted the fucking thing OFF. The best I could do was rotate it a bit to minimize the distraction factor. I suppose if I’d had more time to learn how it worked, I could minimize distraction while maximizing utility but jeez, people, why force the road to compete for your attention? ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smart-cars-and-dumbass-consumers/636293/57 "2012-10-01T19:46:46Z")
Did we settle whether or not **Klaatu** was drunk or not? ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smart-cars-and-dumbass-consumers/636293/58 "2012-10-01T19:48:44Z")
GPS is great. On a long trip it’s handy to see a live ETA to my destination even if I know exactly where I’m going. Also if I do want to go off-course I can do so without worrying too much if I forget my way back (which I rarely if ever do.) But it’s nice to have the backup. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smart-cars-and-dumbass-consumers/636293/59 "2012-10-01T20:01:38Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Did we settle whether or not **Klaatu** was drunk or not? Drunk as a skunk! ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smart-cars-and-dumbass-consumers/636293/60 "2012-10-01T20:28:43Z")
> [@Klaatu](#): > > AIt pisses me the fuck off that automakers these days tout all of these kinds of things over actually how good the fucking car is. > > I want to hear about the engine/drivetrain. Handling, fit and finish, braking, reliability, all that left out shit. Cars are commodities now. I’m surprised they aren’t sold in blister packs dangling from upside-down spikes from particle boards in Walmart. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smart-cars-and-dumbass-consumers/636293.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smart-cars-and-dumbass-consumers/636293.md?page=4)