The automobile industry has become completely sissified since back in my day when cars did not have seat belts. Now it is a complete lap belt and shoulder harness and if you don’t have it on you can get a citation. What gives the government the right to tell me I have to wear this stuff, let alone all that car seat crap to protect babies and children?
I agree with you Tom. I recently got into an argument with the local GM dealership over a recall issue with my 2003 Pontiac Vibe. I have received a total of 9 different recalls for the Takata Air bags in my Vibe. After the third recall on them I got sick of having to make arrangements to get the car to the dealership to have the problem fixed, a problem of witch it appears they are unable to fix. When I received the eighth recall ( this was the eighth separate and different recall not the eighth notification for the same recall ) I decided to remove the air bags from the car. Every recall stated that the air bags could deploy without reason and I felt this was more dangerous than keeping the airbags in case of an accident. It was obvious to me that the airbags could very well be the cause of me having an accident. So I removed them. When I received the ninth recall I called the dealership and informed them I removed the airbags and to please note it so I do not receive any more recalls for the airbags. They told me it was unlawful to remove the airbags from a vehicle equipped with them. I explained to them the reason why I removed them and reminded them that the vehicle belonged to me not to them,or the bank, or the government, or the bureaucrats that run it. But it was most shocking to me how they believed my life was more at risk without them than it was with them in place.
When I was a child I never had a car seat. I remember riding in the bed of my dad’s pickup on long trips with no seats or seat belts. And I rod my bike without a helmet! Now we can’t do anything without being told how to live! Crazy world isn’t it. 
And it I not just the air bag, lap belt, shoulder harness etc. that you can’t mess with. Cars are now designed to certain crash test standards which means cars are structurally designed so that every piece is part of the safety. So you can not take a modern car and chop the top, or remove it. The top, sides, every body piece is part of the structural integrity of the vehicle. Not only can you not personalize it, but the manufacturers have all found that the same design is best for safety crash tests AND mileage, so every new car looks about the same. Boring! All in the name of safety and getting better mileage. Sheeesh.
And another thing, in the name of safety or some such stupidity, the government forces me to drive on the right hand side of the road. What business is it of the government which side of the road I drive on?!?!? I pay taxes to build and maintain that road, I have the right to drive anywhere on it I please.
That has got to be the most aggravating thing. Sometimes it is what the government WON"T do. If GM sold you a car and can not supply an airbag that works like the government requires, then the government should require GM to give you a full refund on the purchase price of a car. Why does the government let business run roughshod over customers?
And I remember when they started that Positive Crankcase Ventilation stuff. That was just the beginning of the government regulating pollution from autos. Shoulda saw it coming and stopped it then, look what we got now.
Traffic lights. If the government gives me a liscense, it means I know enough to know when the way is clear to cross. I don’t need no traffic light holding me up, the government acts like everbody is just stupid and has to be molycoddled.
And now, FORD is aiding and abetting the government planning out automotive future:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2018/01/09/ford-lays-out-grand-vision-self-driving-car-future/1018651001/
Who wants a self driving vehicle? You’d have to be mad to want something like that! What will happen to the freedom of the open road once the self driving vehicle is forced upon us? I hope this doesn’t happen in my life time.
Kids want them, just get in, say where you want to go, and settle in to text while the car drives itself. Driving is a lot of work to them, they actually have to concentrate for more than thirty seconds and make decisions. They want a life where all need to do is eat and text.
But I do hope to see them. I expect to live to a point where I should no longer be driving, and it will give me a great deal of freedom if I can live at home and have a vehicle that takes me where I need to go when I need to go.
Not me Tom, I hope I’m long gone before seeing a life long freedom such as being able to drive myself becomes extinct. I enjoy the simple freedom of driving myself and can’t fathom losing it because the youth of this country are to lazy to drive themselves. I would guess the youth of today would be just fine with me no longer around anyway. They seem to all think people such as myself who believe in the greatness of this country should just hurry up and die. I guess they need folks like me out of way so they can usher in their new utopia of government telling them and mandating them on how to live, what they can own, how to talk, what they can say, what they can eat, where they can work, what they can wear, and so on. That sounds like a horrible place to live out my remaining years, so I have no desire to be around if and when it happens.
I’m 65 and I see a lot of folks who can no longer live in their own home and have to move into a group home situation because they are in the suburbs and lack transportation since they can no longer drive themselves. Many continue to drive who should no longer be on the road, but eventually they will give up driving and the freedom it gives. I expect to reach an age when I can no longer drive. At that point it will be nice to have a car I can just get in and tell it where I want to go, probably electric! This would allow me to avoid a group home and all the rules that go with living in one.
My generation has a sweet setup, two socialistic systems set up by a previous generation so the young are forced by the governmentto take care of us. Social Security is not solvent, but I will get my checks, the young probably will not althopugh they will pay for me. Ditto for Medicare. We are really screwing the young people in this country financially in order to have them take care of us. Any political effort to fix these socialistic programs will be met with fire and fury from us geezers, and we vote! When young people wake up to how we have screwed them over they will be really angry.
Fortunately for us older folks, today’s young are not only lazy, they are basically stupid and don’t care about anything except texting on their phones. While this may result in more government regulation, it also means we seniors can continue to live the good life by draining funds from government programs. The biggest entitlement programs are Social Security and Medicare, and due to government regulation these programs will continue to benefit us, not them. So maybe sometimes government regulations are good…
Obviously this really rankles me, and maybe this is not the place to go on about it. I trust someone will set me straight if this is the wrong setting, but FDR’s Social Security is the largest socialist program put on this nation through government regulation.
Some of what I have said on this thread is sarcastic, but let me be clear about this, It is time to end the government requiring people to pay into Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Make it voluntary to pay into if you want it. Then, consider that most elderly have not saved enough for retirement and depend on Social Security and Medicare. They are just leaches sucking the system dry and taking from the younger generation. They live the high life while the younger people subsidize them. The solution is to cut all payouts from these socialist programs by 50%. Yes, the socialists will scream and cry and moan, but we are a free nation where people make their own retirement plans and tough luck to those who have not done a good job of saving for their own retirement.
I think I understand all of what you are saying, and I agree with most of it Tom. I’m 46 and will probably never see a Social Security check. But I hate to believe the only answer to the problem is that everyone who paid into S/S, especially those who now depend on it, should have their monthly income cut by 50% to try and right a wrong that our government implemented under false pretenses . It was not those that paid into it that caused the problem with this disastrous socialist system so why should they be punished? It was those within government that decided to use it as their own personal piggy bank to fund more socialist programs that caused the problem. The very party that started this mandated train wreck, three decades later, decided to allow both parties the right to steel from it. And then they continuously upped the amount they were allowed to steel from it over the course of the next 4 1/2 decades. Then, fast forward to today, both parties tell those who have paid into it all their lives that the program is broke! Bankrupt! Unsustainable! That’s wrong! Dead wrong! It’s Bullshit Tom! Pardon my French. Government mismanages our money! Plain and simple! And this always seems to punish the taxpayers when doing so. For instance, They used tax payer dollars to bail out General Motors. Then turned around and allowed them to file bankruptcy two years later to avoid paying the pensions and benefits of the men and women who worked for them. As well as also dismissing the billions of dollars owed to those victims and victims family members from the faulty ignition switch law suits. I thought the reason we bailed them out was because they were too big to allow to fail? To Big to allow the loss of all those jobs? I guess those workers, who’d retired already, weren’t part of that reason for the bail out! I think our government is way to frivolous with our money. Why is Welfare never broke? Why are we able to spend/give so much to/on foreign countries, especially to foreign country who have a devout and voiced hatred towards our country? My parents were forced to pay into Social Security as were you Tom. I feel those that paid into it need to get what they were promised. I think our government needs to change it’s spending habits! I think the solution is to stop handing out Social Security to those who haven’t paid into it. Put a cap on Welfare! Get a handle on immigration. Our government allows to many non contributors to reach into the Social Security cookie jar and live off it’s benefits. We need to find a way that those who paid into get their money back from it.
With all that said, I must concur that I agree with you 100% that Social Security needs to come to an end. I think it needs to be handled where those that paid into it all their lives get to see the benefits from the lifetime of government theft they’ve endured though. Not holding my breath that it will happen, but I guess we can still dream can’t we?
Yes, yes, and yes! Except that my generation and those older supported this socialistic program. Its genesis and continuation were with the support of the voters. And it can not be stopped for older voters now because older voters will not allow it. The vast majority of the elderly will fight to keep socialist programs that benefit them while complaining about every other entitlement program. It is hypocrisy. Social Security and Medicare need to be ended.
For 110 years, General Motors has been making cars with steering wheels and pedals. But that just changed.
The carmaker’s self-driving arm, Cruise Automation, on Friday unveiled the latest version of its autonomous vehicle – and the manual controls have been removed.
Cruise, which is based in San Francisco, expects to test the modified Chevy Bolt next year. Eventually, it should serve in ride-hailing services in cities across the U.S.
http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/12/technology/general-motors-cruise-self-driving-car/index.html
Getting close…
I just hope the end isn’t near. 
These things are being tested in many cities all across the world, and once they get the technology right the self-driving cars will take over fast. I think it is just a question of how long it takes to get them safe enough to get government approval.
I think these self-drivers will have to share the road with the rest of us, I don’t believe the government will ban regular automobiles like we now enjoy.
But, once these things take over they will be everywhere, replacing UBER, LYFT, taxis, and truck drivers. Pizza delivery and Amazon will use them. And elderly people who no longer drive. Just get in, plug in an address, and off you go!
You know the one thing I find weird about the thought of a self driving car is that for some reason I feel very threatened by whole concept. Most other technologies don’t bother me as much, but this just seems to get to me and I don’t know why it does so much. I can handle the thought of electric cars coming into their own and someday even replacing the gasoline car all together. The thought of alternative fuels haven’t bothered me in the least. But the shear thought of a self driving car just gets under my skin. I’m not ready to hand over control of my life to a computer. I say as I type this on a computer that I use to frequent this forum every night! That was a pretty hypocritical statement! Any way! Why does a self driving car bother me so much??? I can’t explain it Tom. Why doesn’t it bother you Tom?