The Safety Cult, like all cults, is interesting in part because it is deranged. A symptom of derangement is arbitrary hysteria. In other words, inconsistent, irrational hysteria.
There are many cases-in-point. I wrote about helmet laws the other day. Apparently, the head is the only part of the body that must be kept “safe.” Never mind the spine. Or the extremities. Another case-in-point is the cult’s hysteria over kids potentially being backed-up over by drivers who can’t see what’s back there – due to the Safety Cult’s insistence that all vehicles be made “safer” in the event of rear-end collisions, which has raised the ass end of vehicles so high up that the driver can no longer see over them – at least not without the aid of a closed-circuit camera.
We are also told that “speed” kills – and must be abated. Well how about electronically controlled door releases that can (and have) killed, as by trapped people inside cars after the 12V electrical system that powers them fails? This can be (and has been) a fatal failure if the car’s on fire – or it’s really hot out and the people (the children) inside can’t smash the (often laminated) side glass.
And unlike “speeding,” it is a factor beyond anyone’s control.
The key thing to understand – about the danger – is the electronically controlled part. Power door locks have been around for decades but that is not the same thing as electrically powered door locks. Power door locks are still – fundamentally – mechanical in that even if there’s no power and the electric actuation part doesn’t work, you can still manually open the doors (from the inside) by using the same door pulls because the locking mechanism is mechanically controlled. Electronically controlled door locks are different. They work in the same way that an electronically controlled gear selector works. You don’t actually move anything when you move the selector from Park to Drive. All you’re doing is sending an electronic signal which causes an actuator to move the transmission’s internals from Park to Drive (and so). This is more obvious in newer-model cars that have done away with the vestigial console-mounted gear selector that used to connect a cable to the transmission, which caused Park or Drive to be engaged when you moved the selector backward or forward in favor of push-button selectors.
Well, it works the same way with electronically controlled door locks. You push/touch the button on the door panel and this sends a signal to the actuator to unlock the door. But there’s no longer any direct/physical connection between that button or simulated door pull and the locking mechanism. If the 12V electrical system fails and the doors were already locked – as usually happens with modern vehicles, which are programmed for safety to lock all the doors as soon as the vehicle begins to move – then you’re locked inside. If the car’s on fire – because you just wrecked – or it’s sinking in a pond – getting out is a matter of some urgency. Ask the Old Dirty Turtle’s sister-in-law, who drowned in her Tesla because she backed it into a pond, which shorted out its electrical system – locking her inside.
This is not just a Tesla (or EV) issue, either – though Tesla can be rightly blamed for popularizing this kitschy and stupidly over-teched way of unlocking a car door. Many other manufacturers have emulated Tesla-like electronically controlled door locks – as well as flush-mounted exterior door pulls, which are another not-so-safe thing since there’s nothing to grab (from the outside) to try to get inside, if the pulls are in their “down” position and the electrical system shorted out and for that reason, they won’t rise up.
Which? reports hundreds of “incidents” involving Toyota and Lexus hybrid vehicles – including the popular RX and NX crossovers. An interesting aspect of this is that the 12V battery (as distinct from the hybrid’s lithium-ion battery, which operates at much higher voltage) apparently tends to fail sooner in hybrid applications. It is the 12V battery that powers the door lock system.
There is a manual way out of these cars if you find yourself locked inside – but unless the owner knows where the emergency release is and knows how to operate it, it might as well not be there in an emergency situation when there’s no time to paw through the 500 page owner’s manual.
Toyota says “We will also be sharing guidance with our retailer networks so they can help answer customer questions and reinforce awareness during customer interactions.”
That’s great, as far as lawyer-ese goes – but it really doesn’t get at what is arguably the underlying problem, which is not the potential problem of the 12V electrical system fritzing out and locking people in. The underlying problem is this stupid business of making a reliable, simply control that almost always works – even when the 12V power has fritzed out – and replacing it with a gratuitously over-teched control that has many potential failure points and – the key thing – does not meaningfully improve the operation of the accessory it controls.
How challenging is it to pull a lever – as opposed to pushing a button? A handicapped person might need electronically controlled controls. Non-handicapped people do not. Sigh. Before too long, people fully able to walk will be using those little handicapped carts to cart themselves around, too.
Meanwhile, the Safety Cult is strangely – and arbitrarily – silent. As it has been over the “COVID” drugs that have Bells-Palsied, stroked out and otherwise maimed and killed tens of thousands (probably many more) and EVs spontaneously combusting and Tesla self-driving into walls and over people, too.
Apparently, “safety” only comes “first” sometimes.
. . .
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The door handles on all of our 70’s vehicles were metal pull handles with thum-buttons. None of them caused drag or fuel consumption & they NEVER broke, let alone broke OFF like today’s garbage cars. I’m so sick and tired of ‘fasionable’ crap on cars anymore. Low profile ‘fashion’ killed the inline-six engines for everything but trucks. Aerodynamic ‘fashion’ killed affordable headlights that didn’t fog over in the sun. The ‘no fasteners fashion’ turned every interior panel into fall-apart crap that wont stay on the door or dashboard. The ‘safety Nazi fashion has raised window sills to your jawline & lowered the roofline to your eyebrows, to the point that it takes external camera to see what’s outside the car. Modern cars are like driving 4-wheeled coffins. Except that they beep, chirp, and flash at you non-stop for farting in the wrong direction. A nagging bitch is one thing, a nagging bitch of a car is totally infuriating.
Well-said, Graves!
I took the TA out yesterday for some therapy. My young apprentice showed up – my buddy Tim’s nephew – and I let him experience 1976. The kid bought an ’05 Mustang GT. He is coming to understand the power of the Dark Side!
“ The door handles on all of our 70’s vehicles were metal pull handles with thum-buttons. None of them caused drag or fuel consumption & they NEVER broke”
Except that’s not true.
They do cause aero drag easily measure in the wind tunnel.
They did break. They did freeze easily. They do pop open in side impacts. They are an ergonomic nightmare for those with arthritis.
“ Low profile ‘fashion’ killed the inline-six engines for everything but trucks.”.
Except there are still straight sixes out there. The latest offering coming from Stellantis. BMW of course has used them forever. Mercedes, Mazda CX-90 3.3L, Mercedes / AMG.
There is no shortage of old cars from still out there with push button door handles and straight six’s if you really want to go back to those days.
I’m all for a good rant but as been the topic of discussion here for the last couple days, we (men) need to take action and demonstrate some leadership. New cars suck ? Yeah I agree. Then don’t buy one. Drive something that makes you happy. Show others they don’t need to buy new cars and that an older car is viable and can be reliable.
Hi “Barney” –
Yes, exposed door handles do cause “aero drag.” A trivial/functionally irrelevant amount – outside of compliance pressure. How many miles per gallon are “saved” by the flush mounted door pulls such as the ones on the Kia Telluride I recently reviewed? If I were to install these on my TA, what would the MPG improvement be? Would it even be measurable? If I fart before I get on the scale to weigh myself, I have “lost weight,” too.
Meanwhile, how much complexity and cost have been added? How many new failure points? The old, purely mechanical pulls and locks did sometimes fail. But they were easy and cheap to fix, with basic hand tools. No ody control modules, oy vey.
All of this just makes my teeth ache.
Your point is valid – meaning if you replace the handles on the TA you won’t see a huge fuel economy gain.
“If I were to install these on my TA, what would the MPG improvement be? Would it even be measurable?”
Of course it’s measurable. That is what wind tunnels are for. The tiniest of details are measurable.
What people fail to see is that all the little details add up to significant drag that does matter in a big way.
It’s the same reason all modern cars are weight pigs. Add 1 ounce here, another there for safety structures, air bags, NVH treatments, and customer desired features and pretty soon you have a 3200 lb “economy” car instead of a 1900 lb VW beetle.
The point being both fuel economy and wight are a death by a thousand cuts.
Sure we can rollout the compliance complaint but it is a reality that the OEMs have to operate within.
Eric – I fully understand how much you hate the regulation and compliance game. I do too.
But to deny it’s existence and trying to live in a fantasy of pretending it can be ignored is no different that the complaints from certain characters here that complain about women not taking accountability and not living in reality.
Until something changes – fuel economy and emissions targets will be met.
Until we collectively start refusing to buy and drive new cars, we will keep getting what we’ve been getting. It does literally start with us as consumers.
Eric, this is just the way things are! The regulation and compliance game is inevitable and unchangeable. Mass non-compliance has never worked. Denying the State’s existence and trying to live in a fantasy of pretending it can be ignored is counterproductive to our goals! As a consumer, you should know this.
Ugh. A thin veneer of libertarianism cracking and peeling from the underlying rusted metal statism.
My ordered ’78 Camaro Z28 may have been the only said vehicle
ordered with power door locks but not power windows.
After delivery, for convenience, I installed a power widow kit
for the passenger side window (best kit – Spal, chain drive)
For “safety” all vehicles should have a manual-crank driver-side
window.
Number of Federal Agencies 448
https://www.federalregister.gov/agencies
Vote Democrat and Republican – harder.
BTW, Kindig’s flush door handles are mechenical. How come he can do this no problem but the automakers cannot?
My old Subaru XT’s door handles were flush and mechanical too.
https://silodrome.com/subaru-xt-turbo/
His door handles are one thing for a custom car that never sees serious weather but would never pass muster for production.
Not sealed – they allow massive amounts of water into the door.
I would suspect they won’t pass side impact testing where inertia can cause push to open type latches to pop open due to inertia of the latch.
Hi “Barney” –
The government has no legitimate business doing side-impact or any other “testing” of that kind – or issuing “standards” that must be complied with. Perhaps a private entity (such as Underwriter Labs) can issue voluntary standards. That is an entirely different thing.
If there is a defect, it is a matter for the courts to resolve.
Don’t disagree. . . But we live in the real world not the libertarian fantasy we desire.
My 2012 has the EVIL fob. I despise it and the whole gimmick nonsense with every fiber of my being. A beautiful automobile turned to total piece of shit experience by needless electronic junk.
Disclaimer: I spent decades in avionics playing around with that toy fr boy junk in personal aircraft where OWNERS decided what junk electronic crap to distract themselves with not some nanny ass trouble maker bullreaucrat.
So in the gazillion lines of federal regulations, there’s no fail safe requirement for these rolling appliances? Not just fail safe, but so simple even the stupidest human being could figure it out. Got it.
The automobile will soon be gone. What I’ve learned from reading these articles is that there is no way to remove this stuff and still have a functioning car, so the automobile will have to be rebuilt from scratch if humanity decides to shrug these chains off (and that’s all it will take – a shrug).
The 2027 models, with all their big brother tech are desired by no one, and affordable to even fewer than that, and the 7 and 8 – year loans against a 5 year car life are yet another unavoidable cliff signaling the end of the automobile.
The books that show how to build a combustion engine car are gone from the libraries, and the kids today don’t even have the ability to read these books or the drive to build one even if the books weren’t gone.
Blackrock/Vanguard have bought the old auto parts makers and are destroying all inventory and instruction manuals. Dealers won’t work on their own old cars. Government has ended the automobile. These are its last months.
The backwaters couldn’t repair the aqueducts and roads when Rome fell. It was past the cognitive threshold. Cars will be that, and its bearing down on us. The damage has been done and the situation is irretrievable. The government has ended the automobile.
I read your comment while listening to “High Hopes” by Floyd.
What is “the government” and how do we humans kill it dead for good?
Does anybody here remember the issues with the doors on the Tesla Cybertruck? The edges of the doors (and, IIRC, the hood as well) were sharp enough to slice vegetables or someone’s fingers and hands. I don’t remember the Saaaaaaaaaaafety Cult raising a peep over that.
The addiction to “convenience”, and ever higher “tech”, regardless how useful or useless either may be, seems to be a life requirement anymore. Just can’t live without it, or as in Eric’s article, can’t live with it. Addiction is NEVER a good thing.
Absolutely John, these techies need to learn the KISS principle – Keep It Simple, Stupid
Walkin a tightrope between most useful habits and shadowy addiction is conscious living.
“We will also be sharing guidance with our retailer networks so they can help answer customer questions and reinforce awareness during customer interactions.”
Remember the EV rentals from Hertz? I wonder how many renters got a lesson in proper emergency egress from the minimum wage slave in the booth at the airport?
Maybe the solution is to have a pre-flight video play, explaining the safety features and emergency procedures should the vehicle become engulfed in flame. Play it while you’re waiting for a recharge…
“Contrived Complexity” is usually just an annoying pain in the butt…but this crap will kill you.