I heard someone make a comment on cars and safety by flipping the question on its head: suppose every car were fitted with an 8"(20cm) spike in the center of the steering wheel? If there were a needle-sharp reminder that you would immediately die if you were dumb, or failed to notice other people around you being dumb, you would be a better driver.

Instead, today's auto manufacturers insulated you from reality as much as possible. Adaptive cruise control, lane keeping assists, and the like allow drivers to feel secure in taking attention off the road. Beyond that, newer cars demand you take your eyes off the road to operate a tablet to manage everything instead of just pushing a button or turning a knob by feel. And instead of standard, easily-understood controls that have been basically the same since Hitler's corpse was still warm, they seem to be trying to make everything more pointlessly complex.

Culture coddles the incompetent, and everyone else bears the cost.