IF YOU think about what we were all driving and buying 30 years ago, it was a pretty bleak automotive landscape compared to what we are now able to enjoy.
For one thing, there were far less brands with far less models open to us, and we basically had to take what we could get in terms of features and safety systems.
We had already begun to see the effects of actually having seatbelts required, so that was a good step in the right direction.
We also began transitioning from when rust was a major issue even for new cars, and we really needed to pay attention to the special product on hand to avoid it.
We were also starting to move away from the now-beloved carburetor systems (in the more fun situations, multiple-carburetor systems that almost needed a black art when it came to tuning correctly) to the world of fuel-injection and the beginnings of electronic systems to control how our fuel would be delivered into the combustion chamber.
Nowadays, we have cars with no combustion chambers whatsoever, and we can’t imagine having no computers to run the lives of our cars.
This is actually leading, by the way, to a market where we buy modern cars for daily transportation, and we try to restore classics that will probably last longer because their systems are not so likely to deteriorate.
From a car guy’s point of view, that is an awesome state of affairs, the best of both worlds. The first car I used regularly was the family Toyota Corona, which I regularly took apart, switched engines on, learned to dismantle a carburetor, and blew at least two. (I had the pistons chromed after that and gave them to my friends.)
This year, I was driven around on the Tokyo highway with a Toyota that pretty much drove itself.
Almost all the technological
advancements we now enjoy have come about because computer technology allows much quicker thought and reaction than we could ever have done before with a consistency that even racecar drivers couldn’t match.
Yet these systems are actually changing the way we drive, and we often have to learn new things in order to properly use them.
Take the first big safety advancement of the modern age, antilock brake systems or ABS.
They first came into being in a far-less-sophisticated way than they are now, and it was found that many accidents occurred because the brakes actually weren’t being applied enough.
As a generation trained to avoid locking up the wheels, we were all very wary of hitting the brakes too hard and the result was that computer system data gathering showed the pedals weren’t being hard enough to even get the ABS system to notice.
Now we have cars that use radar to brake themselves if you approach the car in front of you too quickly, and already begin to bring the brake pads closer to the rotors if they think you may call up a halt soon.
Racecar drivers before bragged that they could outperform the ABS systems, and this may well have been true then. But the racecar drivers knew when things were going to happen and were trained to
handle it.
Interestingly, the training to race with ABS brakes is now somewhat similar to training without them but for different reasons.
Previously you were taught to find the threshold of brake lock, the point just before the brakes would lock up. The problem was, this could be different for different surfaces, temperatures and even as your tires, brakes and the tarmac warmed up.
Or you were taught to push hard, lock up, then just let off and do that repeatedly.
Nowadays, if you are on track with ABS you don’t want them to activate unless it is a “that or I hit the wall” scenario because if they activate, you lose smoothness, rhythm, momentum.
You want the car to dance for you at the edge of grip, not shudder and mess up your line.
Modern cars, though, now allow you to turn even while under heavy braking, which before would mean you just locked up and went straight.
Just recently we went through a program with Subaru that had the instructor telling someone to threshold brake, with that person (relatively well-experienced but far too young to have flat-spotted tires regularly while trying to find that “threshold”) being far too timid on the pedals.
After a few rounds, the driver was told to just stomp the pedal, which was the only time they felt what would actually happen (heavy pulsing of the brake pedal that actually scares some people and makes them think their car is coming apart or they ran over someone), and also the only time they began stopping within the correct distance.
That experience and that knowledge saves lives, and not understanding it makes the safety systems unable to actually do their job.
That same Subaru program gave an excellent example of what happens with traction control systems and why you need to be familiar with them as well.
We were testing a vehicle class that didn’t really exist decades ago, that of a small crossover vehicle or an SUV.
The closest vehicle to this back then would have been a big heavy pickup with drum brakes, and heaven help you if you tried to take a corner too quickly.
With modern cars such as that Subaru XV, ABS works independently on all four wheels in terms of what it senses and how it reacts, and doles out controls appropriately as handled by what is called electronic brake-force distribution.
All this combined with a vehicle dynamics control system means that things that would cause you to swap ends or even flip over (especially with taller vehicles on changing road surfaces) now keeps you shiny side up.
Once again, though, these systems need to be understood and hopefully trained on in order to do their jobs at the highest levels. This is best understood in what is called a speed circle or what Subaru used, which was a set of four circles within a box that allowed you to make direction changes and therefore shift vehicle weight rather rapidly and violently.
If you are making the turn and increase pressure on the throttle, the car will understeer or turn less than you would expect. This understeer has always been a rather safe tendency because the reverse would have the car spinning if you don’t know what you’re doing (or start a nice drift if you do).
That keeps the car from spinning or flipping but does little if you are now heading toward something (or worse a mountainside of nothing) on the periphery of that turn.
With these safety systems acting, drivers were instructed to just get off the gas. If you did that with a car without such systems watching over you, all the weight at the rear of the car would shift to the front of the car and potentially induce a spin.
Here though, it just tucked the car in to follow more the steering inputs you were trying to give it, effectively bringing the car back under control.
These two systems are possibly the most important active safety systems in cars today, and it is wonderful that they are available in cars that more people can afford.
Safety belts and airbags generally work when something already happened (though you do now have seatbelt pretensioning that tightens up things a bit if the computer senses potential danger) whereas systems like ABS, traction control and vehicle dynamics or stability control help keep you from getting into the accident itself.
As we have explained here, these systems help you, but it is best if you help them.
Understand exactly what they do and won’t do.
They won’t counter the laws of physics, they can’t help you if you are doing 150 kph on a road shoulder and a child steps out, or if you try and execute a high-speed turn and just expect the car to follow exactly what you think you are telling it to do.
I seem to often insult people by telling them I don’t think they should drive a particular car.
But even with all the safety systems in place, cars do act differently on the edge, and they act differently at high speed. Most people are rarely able to deal with even one of those, let alone both.
I recently kept some people away from an Audi S3 unless they were properly trained because they would probably hit the throttle then freak themselves out.
It is very disconcerting when a car that was pretty far away a second ago is now suddenly in front of you, and you truthfully need experience and proper training in order to handle things safely and correctly.
The most important component in the whole driving system is and has always been the driver, though that recent Tokyo Autonomous Drive experience shows that may well change within our lifetime.
Cars nowadays can save you from what would have killed you before, but that doesn’t mean you are invincible.
So, in spite of all the wonderful innovations, you still need to know your car, and to understand its tendencies and its limitations.
Over three decades ago, my father took me out to a large parade ground and had me turn hard and brake hard and hit the gas hard in a little Dodge Colt.
I learned what the car would do and not do. I learned that it may not respond the way I think it will, and I learned not to be overwhelmed when things went really wrong.
Modern cars are smarter and safer than ever before, but that doesn’t mean we can start acting any less intelligently.
So, rather than just teach people how to park correctly, let’s teach them how to brake better, to handle a little wiggle, and to be more aware.
Which is, of course, a great excuse to go out to a racetrack and get some proper training. Or retraining.
Disclaimer: The comments uploaded on this site do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of management and owner of Cebudailynews. We reserve the right to exclude comments that we deem to be inconsistent with our editorial standards.