Ask HN: Best cars without too much digitalization?

There is nothing automatic braking will do to help you from getting T-boned. In fact only an attentive driver can prevent that one.

Automatic braking will prevent you from rear-ending the car in front, yes. Although an attentive driver should also be doing that.

Comments about voting, flagging, and other moderation actions detract from actual conversation: that's clear from the guidelines (e.g., Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.) and 'dang's moderation activity. As does enumerating every rule, as it encourages just this type of rule lawyering that I've now played a part in exacerbating, so I'll stop now.

People seem to always want to buy my 90s Miata for these reasons. Parts are still affordable and it's reliable...

I am guessing you mean automatic braking in inattentive driver's car, because automatic braking in attentive driver's car works with mostly the same data as the driver themselves (it needs to predict collision, and to predict it, it needs to see the approaching car, estimate the speed, likelihood it will stop...).

Automated system would have advantage there only where it can better "see" things (eg. LIDAR in pitch dark conditions, or maybe positioned at the roof of a vehicle and seeing over other vehicles that a driver can't).

My point was that for attentive drivers, "safety features" are more a nuisance than help in their own car (the worst you can do is have frustrated drivers behind the wheel). If that results in drivers disabling them, we are not better off at all: technology does not get developed and never matures enough not to be a nuisance. I keep them enabled, but I can understand that not everybody wants to go through these rough edges.

> All the other times, it's causing me frustration and pain. It signals a collision as I am avoiding potholes in a tight one-way street and cars parked on both sides of the road (yep, I am going to slam into that parked car for sure — at least it did not forcibly brake which would definitely cause cars behind me to slam into me).

The only time I've gotten false positives on the collision avoidance was when I was going too fast for the situation. Now it's gotten me to drive slower on these narrow lane situations, which is a good thing!

> It brakes when I am backing out of a parking spot into a street and vehicles appear from the other direction (a lane I was not getting into) — this happens so frequently that I am tempted to turn it off.

I haven't experienced this personally, but a false positive here doesn't really have any downsides. Ideally every driver would be skilled enough to not back up so far and go into the other lane, but I do see drivers that back out further than necessary and get a corner of the car across the divide of the road. The cross traffic avoidance when backing up is one of my favorites, it's saved me plenty of times when somebody is going way too fast in a parking lot and I'm backing up slowly.

> Pilot Assist on the highway seems to wait too long to slow down as I approach a car in front of me and then it abruptly slows down, yet it requires me to use the turn signal way too early if I want to overtake someone I caught up with: my drive was much more fluid with a simple stay-at-this-speed cruise control of my previous car.

This situation sounds like you may be driving faster than the flow of traffic, or the follow distance is not set far enough. You can also do the simple stay-at-this-speed cruise control, or adaptive cruise control without the automatic steering capabilities.

I am on the west coast of the US so the roads here are well planned and well marked, so maybe that helps.

> Edit: and blind spot monitoring — the sales guy was so high on it, yet I don't see the purpose: it's right there flashing on your side mirrors so you have to look at them, yet side mirrors are large enough and concave (like on all modern cars) that if you set them up properly, there's really no blind spot a car or bike can fit in. And I still prefer to look over my shoulder to top it off.

Depending on the car, the driver, and how seating position and mirrors are setup, there can still be blind spots despite your best efforts, or have a driver in the next lane in a dark car at night with their lights off accidentally. Nothing wrong with looking at your mirror and still checking over your shoulder, but the blind spot monitoring is still very helpful. That's why the indicator is on the mirror anyways, because they know we are already going to look there before changing lanes.

From my experience the safety features are all supplemental to also having good driving habits, they don't replace the need for good habits entirely.