TommyDeVito

Which all consumers will have to pay for via even more or higher MSRP’s. I have no use for Hal9000 on an automobile but I’m stuck paying the thousands extra for it because we cannot have so simple legislation enacted or some tiered licensing? You can pay it, I don’t want to. It shouldn’t be forced upon me. People need to be accountable for their actions. Fine them, lock them up.

TheDonEffect

Let me start with the premise that I believe all licensing should be stricter in general, which I think could negate the need for separate classes of licenses, but doubtful. Additionally, I think we can all agree that giving a teenager a high performance sports car as their first car usually spells disaster, with the exception being the teenager has respect and training for the privilege of such a luxury. So let's expound on these premises.

To answer your question, it's not and either or, it's a combination of both, however there is a commonality in that there is an incompetent/inconsiderate/ignorant driver, and the problem is exacerbated as the vehicles become less forgiving and are able to do more damage. Plowing into a rear end of a Camry with a Civic is not the same as doing that in a Hummer EV.

Autonomous vehicles will eliminate the human aspect from the equation, but this much further out than Elon Musk has been selling, and also comes with its own set of challenges. Most, might actually be all, autonomous brake tests have shown to be inadequate in higher speeds.

There is also studies that show as cars get safer, driving ability declines, as evident by people falling asleep during semi-autonomous driving.

The common denominator in all this is that drivers need to be better, so until the AI is good enough to replace us, the human has to be better, and the average American will not do this if left to their own devices.

We can get hung up on "class" of licenses, we can all it "category" or "series" or "non-triggering identifier", but requiring people to get the appropriate training to operate heavy machinery that can easily kill someone I believe is not unreasonable, otherwise it would be elitist to require people to get licenses for certain level of races or get certain jobs. We cannot just assume that people are qualified.

Frankly, this same methodology should be applied to more aspects of our lives when it comes to operating things that can do mass harm, but I digress.

I get it, slippery slope to communism, but it isn't. What keeps our society together is not the goodwill of each individual, we have laws and regs to ensure everyone is in compliance. If the mods will let me briefly be political, but it is ironic that the side that usually proclaims freedom above all also tend to side on more policing, what's more socialist/communist/evil non-capitalist than a robust policing body? FWIW I'm on the side of less regs, less government, etc etc and more policing because people can't be left to their own devices.

Because the consequences of a bad driver no one wants to endure. Ask anyone who's been backed into, does relaxed licensing comfort them while they're PTing their injury? I don't want to get hit by a well intentioned incompetent driver just because someone else doesn't want to spend the extra $80 and an hour to get licensed. And if they fail, good, they shouldn't be driving that vehicle, and if they get pulled over and get written up an expensive ticket, good, consider it restitution to society.

We are past the point of the slippery slope, we have rules and regs that affect everything we do. Accounting is a profession built on rules and regulations, otherwise companies would just report hey we made profit. Because Economics 1 day one teaches us no free lunch and people will always act in their own best interest.

Quikag, I get you, I live in CA, you don't have to sell me on less government. But in my older age I'm starting to understand how we get to some of these asinine laws, like all the stuff against car enthusiasts, if we self-policed our enthusiast communities maybe we wouldn't have these laws. But nope, backfire tunes, rims breaking off because of shoddy hella flush or donks, idiots revving their engines through neighborhoods in the middle of the night, coal rollers, and of course the people who used to race cars during peak public hours look a certain way. So while I have plenty to be upset with my government, I also have plenty to be upset with the citizens; and I'm even more upset with people who don't realize that the government works for us because we write their paychecks.

And making cars safer I think we can say has not helped, otherwise we wouldn't be having this convo- we both acknowledge the same problem, just have opposing perspectives on the solution. Cars are now more complicated, heavily regulated and therefore becoming more uniformly jellybean, but no gains. That's the thing, we are all already paying for it, dearly, for driving incompetence, by way of the cost of cars, the cost of insurance, traffic, injuries, etc etc, so instead of reactional measures, why not be more proactive.

QUIKAG

Don, I could get behind stricter licensing requirements across the board as I do agree it's too easy to get a license nowadays as evidenced by the horrible driving out there I see everyday. I just don't see a practical or realistic way to institute a tiered licensing structure for sports and/or heavier 4-wheel vehicles (besides CDL stuff that is already in place).

Unlike Tommy, I look more forward to more well-engineered autonomous vehicle drones so the 75%+ of the driving public who could give a crap about the "art of driving" can be shuttled around town by a robot while they play on their stupid phones. Then, us driving enthusiasts can use them as rolling chicanes.

In the meantime, Tommy, buy up all your fun (less electronic) cars while you still can! I'm certainly trying to do the same. My BW and Vette are long-term keepers for sure.

TheDonEffect

Yeah, I agree that there will be practical challenges with tiered licensing enforcement, because without probable cause a cop has no way of checking, although license plate scanner could alleviate some of that, where there's a will there's a way! The most practical of which would be flat out stricter licensing. I also think that as more people have dash cams, there will be continued discussions about more citizen enforcement for the blatant disregard of others (those who are weaving through traffic aggressively, the super indisputably obvious situations).

I don't mind full autonomous, but I want options. For instance, I get zero joy from driving in gridlock traffic, yeah I'd rather do anything else other than drive, self-driving cars will essentially be personal subway cars, so the convenience of public transit but the benefits of a private car. Otherwise, I want to drive.

Yeah, I do intend/hope to buy a long term fun keeper at some point, just torn on what direction to go with my limited resources, but these days it's a two horse race between another ND2 RF or a GR86. Hopefully people will realize the EV apocalypse is not upon us and OEMs continue to churn out ICE cars, and the used market will be ripe for me to pick one of those up in the not too far future.

With that said, way into the future, I totally hope to get an EV, it makes too much sense as a larger vehicle since alot of the drawbacks of an EV (big, heavy) is negated by being in a larger vehicle, and having all that power to boot sounds great, plus the lower maintenance. I hope that as they come more normalized, they won't be full of gimmicks and get even more bulletproof because the platform has a ton of potential of keeping ownership costs down. Give me a equivalent of a Toyota 4 Runner EV and I'm on board. Simple, rugged, durable, tried and true.

TommyDeVito

Wrong. I’ll be interested in autonomous driving when I can buy a coffin on wheels per say, that lets me lay down in the back with a flat panel (F the phone), like an autonomous limousine. When I can get in the back, and have Hal drive me to my destination, cool I’m in. I could get work done on a laptop, watch a movie, whatever. Not interested in this half and half garbage. It’s stupid and designed for smartphone drivers. In a vehicle I use wireless AC. I talk my lady if I need something done. Mainly it’s my music source and mapping. Anything and everything else can wait. I’m going to pilot the vehicle and disable any and all nannies when I’m driving. Maybe in 10 years will have the EV limousine or something and that will become my DD. Boring, mundane driving will all be in my past. Drivers seat for me will be cornering, 6MT, or towing my PWC and a boat.

I bought up all my sportbikes and modded the hell out of them before the wave of rider nannies and Hal9000 got implemented. No TC, no riding nannies, at all. Watercraft, same, done. I unfortunately cannot escape it on this next vehicle purchase but it is what it is. Cars are secondary to me so I may end up with a GRC and a GR86 and that’s that for fun driving cars. We will see how it goes. I’m moving to the mountains and RWD becomes fair weather only up there. Y’all can have this whole f’in metroplex

vader1

CNET pretty much savages the car:


https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/review...mer-ev-review/


Quote 1 :"It's all so damn wasteful. I just keep thinking about how the battery pack in one of these could instead be used to put not one, but two Equinox or Blazer EVs on the road. As most other automakers -- including primary competitor Ford -- focus on rolling out affordable electric vehicles that people need more than want, GM is over here throwing two batteries' worth of rare metals into six-figure moonshots for the chronically insecure."


Quote 2: "The GMC Hummer EV is proof that electrification won't change too much about our lives. There will still be room on our roads for something that is unnecessarily large and wasteful, something that looks like it could be for work purposes but decidedly is not, as is the American car-buying tradition. Being big and dumb for no good reason will not go gently into that good night, even though it probably should."