I’m all about wearing sealtbelts, and honestly don’t understand people who refuse to wear them.
Having said that… I’ll just continue buying used cars. More and more, newer cars just have too many “features” that I neither want to use or pay extra for.
Come to think of it, I have to press on the brake before I can shift out of park. Of course I’ve been doing that since driver’s training in our 1964 Ford. Maybe they don’t teach that in school anymore. I like the idea of a checklist on the info screen where you have to affirmatively answer each question and pledge your obedience before the car will go. Miss one and you have to start over.
I read a great column the other day about those of us that have a “rebellion gene” in us against stupid rules and devices. Obviously our numbers are thinning. I guess you either have it or you have the compliance gene and do whatever you are told.
How can you tell what you are? Years ago we went to a Marriage Encounter weekend that was hot at our church at the time (before everyone started getting divorced). At any rate, Saturday night we were ordered not to leave the hotel building. We were to stay inside all night. What did we do? We broke out and left the building. I’ll have to admit it took a little to convince the wife who is more compliant but she left too. Felt great to break the chains. Would you stay or leave?
I probably would’ve stayed if they hadn’t told me not to leave!
I would not have gone in the first place .
Having to depress the clutch to start a manual transmission car goes back to at least to the 1940s. The Nash and Studebaker cars engaged the starter by depressing the clutch and then giving an extra stomp on the clutch pedal.
Yeah that would have been a good choice. We were kinda sorta forced to go. A psychologist from church was in our group and had a lengthy discussion with them at the start and left right away. We had a rash of divorces after that and quit the program. One of the first was the couple that paid our fee and obligated us to go. Part of the program was discovering hidden issues with the other. Stuff that never should be brought to the light of day. I mean who cares if they don’t shut the lights off or close drawers, or put gas in the car anyway?
It might actually be a good idea if the annoying audio alarm was suppressed as long as I didn’t shift out of park. Sometimes, like when I’m testing something I want to start the engine in the driveway, then get out and look under the hood; i.e. not drive it. Now to do that I have to live with that annoying audio alarm.
hmm … well, may not apply in my case b/c the car I’m referring to uses a manual transmission.
Does it have an override that mechanics and other individuals troubleshooting or performing maintenance can use or is this like the Volvos that freeze and won’t move at the beginning of the car wash?
GM has been the worst when it comes to making your decisions for you and that is why I no longer like them. I can see why cops don’t like the GM vehicles any more for police work because you cannot turn off the head lights if it is moving. The off position is spring loaded to put the switch back into auto position.
I had to rewire the overhead lights in my Silverado because they were controlled by the BCM and it would turn them on at inconvenient times. Now they are back under my control. Unfortunately you can’t do that to the head lights. I’m looking into seeing if I can remove the spring from the switch.
You can bet this seatbelt control will go through the BCM as well.
add their decision to use backup lights as a “convenience feature” and now everybody have to deal with cross-traffic paying no attention to these on parking lots, GM or not
I used to be a fan of GM pickup trucks. It seems like in recent years, though, that their designs have gone around the bend. More like abstract art on wheels than anything else.
If I had to get a truck today, I’d probably go with a Toyota Tundra. I’m also really interested in the Ford F-150 Lightning (electric). Given all the interest the Lighting is getting, I sure hope GM has something equally impressive in the pipeline.
If you get the Lightning, don’t park it in a garage or carport. As you may know, big automobile battery packs can start to burn while they are recharging. Ford has a recall on their Kuga PHEV, the European version of the Escape. Don’t be surprised if the Mustang Mach-E and F150 Lightning experience similar problems.
To me, the seatbelt warning beep is good enough.
This is a lot more common with the flawed LG battery packs that some cars are using. You don’t see near-routine fires like that with Tesla because Tesla doesn’t use the LG packs. Instead, Tesla does a bunch of other stupid dangerous stuff unrelated to the batteries. 
As for the seatbelt interlock, I tend to dislike being forced to do something that prevents injury to only me. Not that I don’t wear seat belts. I do. But if I’m just pulling the car onto the driveway so I can work on something in the garage, it seems silly to have to buckle the seat belt.
I can think of several scenarios where the interlock would put someone in more danger. If someone is being chased by a mugger and wants to make a quick getaway, having to take that extra time to buckle the seat belt gives the mugger a better chance of catching up to them. Replace “mugger” with “grizzly bear” or “wildfire” and the potential for a negative outcome increases. These will be rare edge cases, but it will still be a shame when they happen.
Personally, I think we should be restricted from doing unnecessary things that put others at risk. I have no problem with prohibiting driving while drunk because drunks kill other people when they drive. But if I choose not to wear a seat belt while driving, the only person who’s going to get hurt by that if there’s a wreck is me.
I tend toward the philosophy that laws/systems like this should exist to protect others from idiots, not to protect idiots from themselves.
I also think it’s somewhat telling that in 2016 we had a 90% seat belt compliance rate in this country, which means only 10% of us are dumb enough to drive around without wearing one. The telling part is that GM is worrying about that stupidest 10% of us and protecting those morons from self-induced deaths, yet they sell several versions of severely overpowered Camaros which can - and have already - killed people via wrecks in street racing.
If they’re truly worried about stopping preventable deaths, they’ll quit selling ridiculously overpowered cars that tempt idiots into killing other people before they implement systems designed to keep idiots from killing themselves.
Not if you live in California or Oregon (fires). That’s a serious comment, btw.
Over and over again we find people trying to get that last 10% at an extremely high cost when the war has substantially been won with the 90%. Pick a subject and the loons are out there squeezing the last dime. The 70/30 rule used to be just good management to conserve resources.
I sometimes people watch while sitting at stop lights, and the amount of people who still drive without a seatbelt really surprises me.
I don’t recall the 70/30 rule being accepted when lives were at stake. Risk management is a lot more than you imply. The willingness to tolerate risk is a function of both the likelihood of occurrence and the consequences if bad events come to pass.
My oldest friend from my undergraduate days refuses to wear a seatbelt–unless he is in my vehicle, in which case he has no choice but to fasten it. In his own car, he latches it behind him and then sits on it. While he does drive like a little old lady, he doesn’t seem to understand that, even at 30 mph, his chance of being badly injured is much higher because he is unrestrained.
Quite. That said, when the only life at stake is the life that is stupidly risking itself because buckling a seat belt is just so inconvenient, I’m more in favor of the 0/100 rule.
I do find it amusing that it took seat belts for @bing and I to see, partially, eye to eye.