Personal responsibility or recall and paternalism?
04/24/2016
The Fiat-Chrysler Group is recalling 1.1 million cars (including Dodge, Jeep, etc.) because the driver can leave the car without the automatic transmission being shifted to "P" and the car can therefore roll away on its own. This should now be prevented, the car should be smarter than the owner.
Hello? How was this before? With manual cars (and also with automatic cars), for example, you could get out of the car at any time and leave the gear in neutral; nobody reminded you of this lapse. The manufacturers would have to recall several hundred million cars!
In the past, it was the driver's responsibility to ensure that his car was properly secured, whether on a hill or on a flat stretch of road. They applied the handbrake themselves, engaged forward or reverse gear depending on the incline, and that was that. Apparently, people no longer trust him to do the same today. This also explains why a modern BMW refuses to drive away if one of the doors is not properly closed.
All these safety devices may prevent the odd accident, but they often make life more difficult and incapacitate the driver, who is increasingly forgetting how to put the car into the right gear before leaving it.
