Spooky
A friend picked me up today in a newly leased Mercedes SUV (yeah, I don’t think they’re short of a few bucks). I don’t know if it was this one exactly, but it was close. Have you been in a modern car lately? It’s creepy as hell.
The whole dashboard is one big screen. The instrument cluster and everything is just an image (and, I gather, completely customizable). The center console was showing us video out front (or back, depending which way we were moving) with helpful guidelines overlaid for the position of curbs, etc.
Gosh, I ain’t even notice if it was electric.
We go around one corner, and both our seatbelts tighten. She laughed, “it saw something it didn’t like – a pedestrian or something.”
Saw something it didn’t like. Let me off this consarnit newfangled earth!
Posted: January 12th, 2026 under personal.
Comments: 5
Comments
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: January 12, 2026, 6:29 pm
A friend of mine badly broke her leg many years ago. She asked me to drive her somewhere in her SUV on a very cold Boston day. I had never before encountered heated seats and my first thought was that I had somehow pissed myself.
Comment from QuasiModo
Time: January 12, 2026, 9:39 pm
My 2019 Impala has a touch screen…I hate it. Give me good old fashioned knobs and gauges any day. I pushed a button the other day and the steering wheel got warm…I thought I was turning on the cruise control, lol 🙂 Battery is always dying in that car, it’s no surprise why with all the electrical crap.
Comment from Uncle AL
Time: January 12, 2026, 10:30 pm
I’ve got a ’23 Kia Soul with the techie package and it has a couple of goodies I really like. The adaptive cruise control works not only uphill but downhill as well (this is a rarity), and is hooked up to the anti-collision front radar sensor. The car slows down to keep a driver-set following distance behind traffic to the front, and speeds back up again when it’s clear. Then there are the lane-keeping sensors that will steer the car around curves, at least ones that aren’t too tight.
Why do I like this so much? It means that I can keep moving and use both hands to finish my fast food French fries (a/k/a “chips”) while they’re still nice and hot.
Comment from p2
Time: January 12, 2026, 11:01 pm
There are a few reasons I drive a 51 year old Chevy van and a 47 year old MGB. Neither have any electronical crap in them, I can live in the van if necessary & the MGB is just fun to drive. Plus, I can fix either with what I have in my toolbox now.
Comment from Durnedyankee
Time: January 13, 2026, 12:52 am
I dread the day my 2011 Ford F-150 can’t be fixed for driving.
I view ALL the electric shirt in a vehicle as something on it’s way to die. The radio in the truck (and the clock) died about 4 years ago, I opted for a 12 Amp 1/2″ chuck “Binford 2000” class drill instead of a new radio when the boys offered to get me a new radio/CD player.
I loathe electronics, especially the one who want to help me by turning me into an ongoing revenue stream.
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