I Hate Cars….

It's not like I hate them as machines. As a bike person, I'm instantly attracted to any wheeled vehicle. (Recumbents and unicycles excluded, nothing personal.) No, what I hate about cars is that, excluding actual weaponry, no invention in modern history has been as successful in eliciting the very worst from people and making death, maiming, and general mayhem a part of everyday life.

Of course, a reliance on private cars as a primary mode of transportation has made our country undeniably better in many ways. For one thing, cars keep getting bigger to compensate for increased fuel efficiency. Also, the average American spends 42 hours a year sitting in traffic, and the percentage of kids walking or riding bikes to school has gone from 48 percent in 1969 to around 13 percent today. Best of all, we're up to over 37,000 motor vehicle deaths a year, the highest number since 2008.

I hate cars….

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So, while new cars offer a much more comfortable and enjoyable driving experience than older cars do, there are a few things that those older cars simply did better. With that, here are 10 things we hate about modern cars.

Mobile phones have taken over the lives of many people and so carmakers have added special cubbies to aid in holding said devices. While some cars simply have a tray, others have a dedicated slot just wide enough to keep the phone from sliding and making noise. The issue is that many of these dedicated places do not account for a cover or even completely ignore the fact that there are folding smartphones.

Many cars do now offer integrated charging pads into the dashboard, which mostly solves the problem, however, some of them still insist that the smartphone be removed from the cover to work properly. There should really be a better way to do it.

Automatic transmissions in the past used to be the more comfortable option, especially in big, heavy cars. They were better at changing gears than the average person was and even though most of them were pretty dimwitted, they worked relatively well.

While the downsizing of engines is already well underway and there is nothing anyone can do about it, one aspect of the modern car which all motoring enthusiasts hate is the fact that most new cars have soft limiters. These devices/software limits the ability to rev the engine when standing still.

The automaker which most easily uses soft limiters is Audi, which has one on every car it currently sells. This means that even the RS versions with throaty V8s and the R8 with the glorious V10 sound like a vacuum cleaner when revving at a standstill. BMW also employs soft limiters, but luckily when the car is in Sport+ mode, it disappears, leaving the driver to rev to the redline. The soft limiter is one of the things we hate most in modern cars.

Michael De Kock is passionate about cars and everything from avocados to particle accelerators. He has studied psychology and knows a little bit about fixing cars (old Land Rovers mostly). He also blogs and has a book, 125 Creative Writing Prompts for Petrolheads, available on Amazon. His philosophy in life: Stop the hate - Adopt a V8.

One woman said that she almost hit one of the company's minivans because it suddenly stopped while trying to make a right turn, while another man said that he gets so frustrated waiting for the cars to cross the intersection that he has illegally driven around them.

A Waymo spokesperson said its cars are "continually learning" and that "safety remains its highest priority" during testing. The spokesperson also said that Waymo is using feedback from its early rider program to improve its technology, though it declined to comment specifically on the intersection complaints mentioned in The Information story. The company has previously said that it plans to launch a commercial self-driving taxi service before the end of the year, but that its service will still include a Waymo employee in each car as a "chaperone."

The potential for self-driving cars is so powerful because they eliminate aspects of human error and unpredictability that make driving dangerous, like speeding, texting, drinking, or blowing through stop signs. As they start coexisting on roads alongside human drivers, however, that very unpredictability can confuse the cars, which may stop abruptly, endangering or aggravating people.

Waymo and other self-driving car companies will continue to try to work out software kinks and expand their regions of operation, but experts are divided on when self-driving cars will actually become mainstream.

I hate cars. Not because they are loud or polluting. But because they are so damn expensive and prone to breaking down. Ever since I was young cars have been the bane of both my families life and mine. In America you can't really live without a car unless you live somewhere like New York city or L.A.. Somewhere with fantastic and easy public transportation. But here's the secret for everyone who lives in big cities about us who don't: most places don't have good or sometimes any public transportation. And with everything being so spread out you need a car to get to a job so you can make money so you can buy a car, or groceries, or get medical treatment, etc. And cars are so horribly expensive, especially for people already living paycheck to paycheck. And god help you if you don't have good credit, which many who are living paycheck to paycheck don't. You can either try and save up money while your current car is holding out so you can get another crappy cheap car. Or go to a horrible used car salesman who is willing to give you a credit loan even with your bad credit so you can pay 30k over 20 years for a car that should normally cost 10k. And pray that car doesn't break down while your still paying it off.

Ya, I fucking hate owning a vehicle. I had to get one for work as the only work in my area is about an hour drive away so walking is out of the question. My father bought it, even though I paid for it, without my knowledge and I have been stuck with the pos since. Took me about 6 months of pay to pay off the dam car and all the repairs that have had to be done to it and the pos is still breaking down all the time. Not to mention it's a dam gas guzzler. Fuck I hate that thing.

I hate cars too. I wish we had trains that could help me with my every day commute in Georgia. I don't think that'll happen anytime soon though. Driving is still insane to me and an old past time that won't die.

@MosaicM80: yeah I agree. I've seen cars be such a huge stress source for so many friends and family members. I know people who essentially became expert mechanics because they couldn't afford to do it any other way - full engine swaps and transmission rebuilds etc. The money, the time, not having a decent garage to do the work, crappy cars always breaking.

I don't like cars either, I bike everywhere, heck most distances are easy with bikes + its healthy for you. If its too far to bike, I take the train, if its too far to take the train, I take the plane. Cars nowadays(in the UK) are that intermediary thing, like the IPAD(between phone and computer), and I know I don't need no intermediary.

That's why you have to bring someone with you who knows enough about cars to look for the best one that's going to have as least amount of problems as possible. That's not always gonna work though and of course cars will sometimes just break out of the blue. Another good thing when you're buying used, take the car to a mechanic before you buy it. A lot of dealers will let you do this. We know a guy with a garage and a lift so he can get under the car and check everything out before we purchase.

I have a 99 Toyota Camry. People give me shit and say, "it's foreign," but lets dissect your "American" made car and see where all the parts come from... 80% of the Camry's parts are from the USA anyway and most of them are sold in America. I bring this up OP because when you select a car again in the future, don't let people who are essentially fans of a certain brand talk you into anything. I mean, sometimes those "foreign" cars are cheaper and break less (in my experience with my car and the cars my family owns, the foreign cars end up being better). I mean, for a 99, my car is doing great and I've only had two problems. 1. The battery was losing connection and needed cleaned, which can happen to every car eventually I'm assuming. 1. The trunk leaked because the previous owner tore the trunk seal. I went to a junk yard and took a trunk seal off one of those cars for dirt cheap; my car no longer leaks.

@MosaicM80: What kind of freaking cars are you getting used for 30k? My friends been living from car to car the past 8 years and never paid over $1000 for one. Of course he's an idiot and never wants a mechanic to check it out. His most recent one he finally broke down and got a $6000 sedan. I think it's a volvo but I can't remember. It's a nice luxury looking car and runs great and had only something like 60k miles on it.

I love having a car but I hate the costs incurred with ownership. I just bought a used car off a family friend and when I went to get the title the state wanted $1000. That coupled with stupid high insurance costs, gas, and general maintenance makes me wish there were other viable travel options where I live.

Maybe I expected more from the Giantbomb community, but this doesn't even begin to cover all the problems of America's dependence on cars and all the problems associated with that. It's simple and introverted nature pulls me back into reminding myself of all those crappy essays I had to write in elementary school.

Buying and owning a car is something that can be a giant hassle if you don't put the time into research and learning about cars. If you want to buy a car, you should spend about 3 months looking and doing research in your area to figure out what to buy, and then you will get a good deal with little hassle. I got a 2001 Jetta with around 100000 miles on it about a year and a half ago for $5000. In that year and a half I only had to do one small thing to it that cost me about $60 (other than oil, gas, and basic inspection cost), and I don't foresee anything bad happening with this car in the near future. Get a car you can tell has been taken care of by previous owners, and get something like a VW or Honda that will very easily last over 200000 miles if you take care of it. I only spent $5000 on this car, and it could last me the next 10 years if I really needed it to. 2ff7e9595c