why your old car is about to double in price.. IBM new patent

[thebornotaku]

Agreed, but it's kind of a crap shoot IMO. This concept is good, the intrusion factor is not. Just like teaching people good driving habits = great, the majority of people's ability to learn these things / concern (mostly concern) = terrible.

Pretty sure the main problem here is most people don't give a shit.

Enthusiasts, sure. We'll double-check our alignments, fine-tune our boost control and make sure our tire pressure is good, make sure we maintain our cars on good schedules, and generally care for things much better than your average monkey.

Most people see cars as just a way to get around, and don't appreciate fully the engineering that goes in to their cars and as such generally don't care so much about maintenance.

I've found that this extends on to driving ability -- for the enthusiast that does all this stuff, they want to drive in such a manner that they'll get to know their car better, and see how it reacts in different environments.

To paraphrase Clarkson,

"I don't have any interest in brain surgery, therefore I'll be no good at it. Likewise, people who have no intrest in cars or driving will be no good at it, and should have their licenses revoked".

Remember how much flak Obama got by asking people to check their tire pressure?

That's why TPMS are federally mandated now, because of the attitude of apathy/persecution towards anything even remotely considered 'environmentally', which apparently is the latest code word for 'leftist' or whatever new label is currently being arbitrarily thrown around.

I don't have a TV or keep up with the news, so I haven't heard of this.

But still -- I don't even think we have to attribute it to people being anti-"green", because honestly, increased fuel economy and better vehicle dynamics benefit us in more than just less emissions -- but that we can probably mark it up to complete apathy for taking care of their car, as stated above. One time we had a lady with a 5 series come in with tires inflated to 80psi+... we asked her why they were pumped so high and she said the tire pressure light came on so she kept putting air in them... without bothering to check what the proper tire pressure was supposed to be and inflate her tires properly.

If we can't trust people to do something so simple as perform such simple maintenance tasks, how can we trust them to have enough mental capacity to be safe, courteous and efficient drivers? The answer's simple: we can't. I see it every day too -- people who are far too busy putting on makeup, texting, reading the newspaper, or doing any number of other things rather than just fucking DRIVING.

[Lunner]

Agreed, it's the whole freedom vs liberty thing, which, surprise surprise, yields no easy answers (despite what all the yelling back and forth would suggest, I imagine if we gave the republicans complete control for another 8 years they'd totally fix everything ;) ).

And yeah, I'd love two (unrealistic) things to happen in my life time.

1. Extensive, efficient and reliable public transportation everywhere.

2. Ridiculous bureaucratic hoops and difficult driving tests to get through before one is allowed to legally drive. And the abolition of the under the hood part of the smog inspection (ok, 3 things).

Then the roads would be populated by just driving enthusiasts, and all these damn old people, stupid teenagers and rich doctor's wives with more important things on their blackberrys than they can find on the other side of the windshield (which is just fine by the way, cause the MBz will correct the wheel if they drift now, god I hate Gold River...); all these people would get out of my way and let me enjoy my damn e30 without having to worry about dying if one of them screws up.

Anyway, yeah.

Oh, and the tire pressure thing dates back to the campaign trail. I don't watch much tv any more either, I ditched Comcast and got Netflix instead (which is a brilliant move btw). During some speech on cutting back energy consumption, he urged all Americans to check the tire pressure as a means of cutting back some XXX (you know it's a large number, I don't know it off hand) barrels of oil consumed every year. Some time later, after the pundits and yahoos did their thing, the McCain campaign started distributing these:



Obviously, given the logic of the idea, McCain later said that checking tire pressure IS a good thing (I think there's a word for that that was popular circa 2004, don't remember specifically, some kind of foot wear item...)

BTW, if I ever see one of those gauges I'm totally snagging it.

[thebornotaku]

^replace "e30" with "volvo" in that post and you have my though process exactly.