Oh geez. First you tell people to go get a modern 2010 model, then you poo poo features that can be dangerous.
Wife and son and family were in Norway and had rented a van. Wife was getting something out of the van and had the key. As a joke son shut the door and she was trapped inside. No way to open it from the inside. The police finally were able to open it. So spare me.
No access to the driver’s seat?
No. Norway vehicle regulations.
Probably got the handle at Goodwill.
In my world there are 2 kinds of car break ins - crimes of opportunity and the work of professionals who want very specific things like the whole car or valuable parts. The break-ins are mostly opportunity when the thief sees something inside or sees you putting something carefully in a “secret” place. The lesson is simple. Don’t leave stuff where someone can see it. I sometimes leave the glove box open and the lids on little cubbies open, too. There are times I’ve left a car unlocked, so the thief won’t smash a window. For these thieves speed counts and rooting through a trunk takes time. If you often have to leave laptops or other smallish valuable things in a car trunk put them in there before you get to the place where you are going to park, or even have a lockable steel box bolted to the floor of the trunk.
If a pro wants your car, they will get it.
The typical consumer does not care about anything more complicated than “newer is better” and looks and aesthetics. If they did, cars would still come with non-interference engines and be designed for easy maintenance and servicing. Silly features such as very large wheels and touchscreens galore would not exist.
Hard to really argue with what the typical consumer wants. We rely on the marketing and engineer professionals to get it right. Kind of like seats that in the past were designed for the average body that doesn’t exist. I’ve been buying cars for over 60 years and I have yet to have any corporate type ask me what I wanted. Sales staff was the closest. Wet can only buy what is produced for us, like it or not. Want a radio the provides radar weather? Sorry, the programming kids want you to use your smart phone while driving. Want a standard v6?? Sorry you’ll have to take the turbo 4 instead. Rain drop sensitive wipers? Who needs or wants the? Let’s vote. Sure some of this stuff is government meddling but anyone else think the body parts from one manufacture to the other are near interchangeable with a few hammer blows?
Bottom line I think the average strike that, typical consumer has been ignored. Average means just as many like versus don’t like so typical is a better word.
I rarely lock my doors usually there is nothing worth stealing, But my brain farts are getting worse. Was at hotel gathering stuff to take to the room, locked the doors and go out in the morning to find the drivers window was open. My first thought looking for broken glass. Nothing harmed, nothing stolen.
Good point, neither have I. But it doesn’t mean the car manufacturers aren’t asking someone what they want in a new car, just not us. In the high tech industry we’d gather a few existing customers into something called a “focus group”, and ask them what they thought about our products, and how we could improve them. It’s an imperfect method b/c existing customers don’t necessarily represent the objectives of the typical potential customer, but at least we were asking someone. The focus groups sometimes suggested impractical putative improvements, and rarely provided any new pragmatic ideas about needed product features, but did sometimes change the development priorities.
There’s a conflict of interest involved. The manufacturer’s primary goal is increased revenue and profits from selling more new cars. They would just as soon not have to deal with maintenance and repair issues at all, and only do so b/c new car buyers consider this aspect when making their purchasing decision. Car manufacturers c wouldn’t want to go out of their way to make it easy to repair their cars inexpensively by the owner in their driveway, b/c that may delay the customer’s purchase of the next car. I expect if car manufacturer’s had their way 100%, they’d ask the politicians to pass laws to make it illegal for their customers to repair their own cars.
Isn’t this kind of what John Deere did concerning the releasing of their repair manuals, software diagnostics, etc… They tried every twist in the law: copyright infringement, Patent Protection violations, etc…
It was only this recently that John Deere agreed to give its US customers the right to fix their own equipment. It took President Biden signing an executive order calling on the Federal Trade Commission to draw up a countrywide policy allowing customers to repair their own products, particularly in the technology and agriculture sectors.
Previously, farmers were only allowed to use authorized parts and service facilities rather than cheaper independent repair options.
Doesn’t your car’s Smartphone app tell you if the doors are unlocked, and/or if a window was left open? 
That is one of the more amazing features of new high-tech cars.
Some years ago on our local auto talk radio show, the host saw the manufacturers heading to no ownership, just leases, and all work accordingly done at the dealer. Kind of an early you will own nothing and be happy. Kinda to the point where a lease is a necessity for a lot of folks.
As far as market research, yeah I’m dating myself, but all an executive would have to do is peer inside a used car or walk down the aisle of a parts store, to see all the after market cup holders. Then someone got the bright idea to build them in. Amazingly out of touch is all I’m saying. When I ordered my 74 olds, one of the options was a trash container. I held myself back at the point and went for the after market variety that flopped all over the driver tunnel. Making my own cup holders would have been a lot easier now with the new plastic printers.
About 1965, the place I worked at in Cleveland had a parking lot with a security guard. A lot of cars there had a push button key lock on the trunk and a lot of those just had a hole there where it had been knocked off. So I just left nothing of value in the car and left the trunk and doors unlocked. They broke a vent window anyway.
The only time that I ever had anything stolen from a car was circa 1976, when I parked my low-tech '74 Volvo in Manhattan, at night. I came back to find that the protruding trunk lock mechanism had been knocked off, leaving a hole. Because of the incredibly unreliable nature of that POS Volvo, I kept a lot of tools in the trunk, and–as you can guess–I lost all of my tools that night. 