When you drive as many cars as the CompleteCar.ie team you begin to appreciate some of the small touches that manufacturers include to make life easier for the buyer: the umbrella hidden in the door of the Skoda Superb, the LED lights built into the back of the door handles on the Audi A4 and the soft-close doors on some Mercedes-Benz models for example.
Conversely, we also pick up on aspects of cars we would rather not see. Things like manual windows in the back, where kids can easily open them and launch their siblings favourite toys out of the window, are annoying, as too are thirty grand cars that do not include Bluetooth as standard. But the thing that gets my goat the most is traction control.
Actually, it's not the traction control that is annoying but more so the warning symbol that is displayed on the dashboard if you have the temerity to deactivate the system. It is the automotive equivalent of being scolded by your mother for not wearing a helmet while riding your bike. I'm sorry but I grew up during the eighties; an era where playtime protection amounted to a lashing of sun screen before we went out and little else besides, so the idea that a car is giving out to me for doing something out of the norm is not only alien, but also rather annoying. My mother has long stopped attacking me with a handful of factor-fifty and I do not need a glowing amber symbol warning me that a crash is imminent just because I have pressed a button.
Some manufacturers are worse than others; one car driven recently ended up with the entire centre of the information display - the part normally reserved for telling you how much fuel you have left - replaced with a warning symbol urging me to turn the traction control back on or risk a fiery death. I know the traction control is off - I'm the one who turned it off, now would you please show me how much petrol I have left in the tank?
Certain manufacturers actually have two-stage deactivations. A simple press means the car will give you just enough slack on the leash to have some fun before intervening, while the second stage - found in a number of ways but the easiest is to depress the button for an extended period - turns off all of the associated electronic gizmos and leaves you to fend for yourself. To get to this unadulterated stage takes a determined effort - you are unlikely to leave your finger on a button for ten seconds or so by accident - so it means that a conscious decision has been made to turn it off and yet you are still given the 'fiery death' warning. STOP IT!
If you do not want me to turn the traction control off do not give me the option. Do away with the button altogether thereby taking away the temptation to stick two fingers up to our health and safety overlords. There are of course certain circumstances where turning off traction control is required; driving in snowy conditions for example, but cars and the computers that control them have become so advanced that these circumstances can be accommodated. If an otherwise two-wheel drive car can slip into four-wheel drive mode in the blink of an eye or if power can be shuffled along an axle to the wheel with the most traction quicker than you can say 'oh crikey' then surely the manual element of traction control can be done without. It is just a matter of getting a laptop wielding engineer to write a few lines of code then there will be no more need for overbearing warning symbols telling you to get your affairs in order.