Since they are starting to do away with parking brake pedals or handles I wonder why they just don’t automatically make the “parking” brake come on when you put a car in park.
Edit:
http://www.edmunds.com/car-news/chrysler-recalls-469000-jeeps-for-rollaway-risk.html
I had a Jeep Grand Cherokee for 2 weeks as an insurance rental, and can attest to the fact that the shift lever would drive you crazy.
I had a BMW 328i as a loaner from my local dealer, and I never knew what the hell I was doing with that electronic gear selector. A similar example of technology for the sake of technology, with little regard to the practicalities.
Yeah, I can barely wait for self-driving cars --NOT!–when you will have less than zero information about what the car is up to. (I saw the other day that apparently the more automated the car the more they have to beef up all the systems. It also suggested that you can turn the automation off, and then you have a better car…)
I drive a 13-year old vehicle with old-fashioned, easy-to-understand, and very predictable levers, knobs, and dials. Making the simple but obviously important task of shifting in and out of “park” more complicated than it needs to be is criminally idiot product management.
I’m very sorry to hear this. I enjoyed his acting.
And for the engineers who spend years designing and building these things, whatever crazy combination of buttons becomes second nature to them by the time they’re done. (“Of course you press Control-Alt-WQ to save the file, how else would you do it”) And then it’s “driver error” if someone doesn’t understand.
I’ve got a car with an electronic parking brake that you push to turn on, and then somehow reach in behind the button and pull it back to turn off. Except when the car is in a special mode where a sensor measures how much of a slope you’re on and activates the brake automatically. Whee.
Beam him up Scotty.
jw1
Yelchin’s death is tragic, but it could have been worse. Since Anton Yelchin had the good fortune to be killed by an automobile, his survivors will probably reap huge rewards from a product liability lawsuit.
Alas, those killed every day in this country by firearms have no such luxury, because Republicans.
Car kills you? “Sue! Take those bastards to the cleaners!” Gun kills you? “Why are you blaming the gun or the company that manufactured it?”
Who gets out of the car without engaging the parking brake?
Most people who drive automatics, that’s who.
Several of the news stories described this as a “freak accident”. It seems to have not been such a freak after all. Lots of people have been commenting in various places about how hard it is to tell what gear you’re actually in on these, and how easy it is to accidentally shift it into neutral on parking.
i have a 2015 jeep grand cherokee, and i can attest to how absolutely shitty the shifter is. more than once i’ve thought it was in park when it was actually in reverse or neutral and almost rolled back out into traffic. it’s horrible, and it’s the reason it’s been recalled (though they don’t actually have a fix yet) and the 2016 is totally different.
my hope is that the “engineered” fix that they will supposedly have by the end of 2016 will be to replace the entire center console in the 2015’s with the center console from the 2016’s.
Then they are idiots. Park is not a brake. I currently drive an automatic and when I stop the brake goes on.
And for this, they deserve to be crushed. Got it.