Modern Cars Are Making Us Forget How to Drive

Cars increasingly watch, warn and intervene while we drive. The technology can make journeys safer and easier, but as our cars take over more of the work, are our own skills, judgement and independence beginning to disappear?

I have spent more than 35 years judging cars, yet increasingly it feels as though the car is judging me. That thought came to me while driving a brand-new modern EV equipped with the latest technology. The identity of the car is unimportant because it simply represents the direction in which almost the entire motor industry is travelling. Modern cars monitor where you are looking, tell you when they think you are tired, control your speed, maintain your distance, steer between the lines, brake for hazards, park themselves and issue a running commentary on almost everything you do.

Some of this technology is genuinely useful. Some of it can save lives. Some of it can also make you wonder which one of you has actually been entrusted with driving the car.

Keep holding the wheel while the car takes control

The car’s intelligent cruise-control system could manage the speed, maintain the gap to the car ahead and help keep the vehicle positioned within its lane. In practical terms, it felt remarkably close to an autopilot system, although the car continued to insist that I keep my hands on the steering wheel.

That is the little sop it gives the driver: please hold the wheel. The car will take care of virtually everything else, but it would still like you to sit there clutching the controls so everybody can maintain the legal and psychological fiction that you remain fully in charge.

Then came the feature I really disliked. When I tried to make a small steering correction of my own, the wheel became sticky and resistant. I had to fight the assistance system because the car had already decided where it wanted to go and was reluctant to obey my input. The driver is instructed to remain alert, engaged and responsible, yet when that driver exercises judgement, the machine can push back.

So who is the boss of the steering after all?

Before anyone starts composing an angry email on behalf of the entire ADAS industry, I understand the purpose of lane centring, emergency lane keeping and adaptive cruise control. Used appropriately, these systems can reduce fatigue, prevent collisions and protect a momentarily distracted driver from a potentially serious mistake. My concern is with the changing relationship between car and driver, especially when assistance becomes intervention and intervention begins to feel like authority.

Like a racing game with every assistance turned up

The nearest comparison is a racing game with all the driving aids set to maximum. The game displays the ideal racing line, chooses the braking point, slows the car for you, corrects the steering and rescues you whenever your talent runs out. You can still hold the controller and tell yourself that you are driving, but the software is doing much of the skilled work.

That is useful when somebody is learning, lacks confidence or simply wants an easy experience. Leave every assistance switched on indefinitely, however, and the player never develops the judgement required to drive without it. Remove the racing line and they no longer know where to position the car. Turn off automatic braking and they miss the corner. Disable steering assistance and suddenly the barriers seem unusually magnetic.

Real cars are moving in a similar direction. They can judge the distance to the vehicle ahead, recognise a speed limit, watch the lane markings, warn about objects in a blind spot, show a 360-degree view and intervene if they believe the driver is about to make a mistake. Each feature makes an individual task easier, but collectively they can remove much of the observation, anticipation and judgement that once defined competent driving.

Technology helps us and changes us

What I am talking about is the loss of the skills we once had as drivers. As technology takes over, we become reliant on it, complacency sets in, and the skills, judgement and abilities we once possessed gradually erode.

Satellite navigation is the most obvious example. I used to carry a large road atlas, spread it across the bonnet, work out the route and then retain enough of it in my head to reach the destination. You learned the shape of the country, understood which towns connected to which roads and developed a sense of direction. If you made a wrong turn, you assessed your surroundings and found another way.

Now we type in a postcode and blindly follow a coloured line. I do it too. It is quicker, easier and usually much more accurate than my optimistic interpretation of a folded map in a crosswind. The problem becomes apparent when the phone loses its signal, the navigation system crashes or the mapping data leads us somewhere absurd. We look up and realise we have no idea where we are, which direction we are facing or how we arrived there.

Reversing cameras produce a similar dependence. They are invaluable in modern cars, particularly when thick pillars, high waistlines and tiny rear windows have made outward visibility progressively worse. Yet many drivers now stare exclusively at the display while reversing, barely turning their heads to look around the vehicle. Technology first compensates for a design problem and then trains us to depend upon the compensation.

Parking sensors, automatic headlights, rain-sensing wipers, blind-spot alerts and speed-limit recognition all follow the same pattern. Each one removes a small decision. Eventually, if the system fails or we step into an older vehicle, we discover just how many routine observations have been quietly outsourced.

Your car is watching, sensing and logging

There is another dimension to this relationship. Alongside acting upon the world around it, the modern connected car can monitor the driver and generate a substantial amount of data about the vehicle’s use.

Cars can detect whether your eyes appear to be on the road, record diagnostic information, know their location, calculate average and maximum speeds, log journey times and distances, monitor energy consumption and recognise patterns in acceleration, braking, steering and the operation of assistance systems. Sensing, storing and transmitting are separate stages, so every camera image, steering movement and prod of the accelerator is unlikely to be travelling continuously to a secret bunker where somebody in a polo neck is marking your driving out of ten.

The distinction matters. A car can sense information without storing all of it, store data locally without uploading it, or transmit selected information for a connected service, diagnostics, product development, an emergency or another defined purpose. The exact position depends upon the vehicle, service, settings, permissions and applicable law.

When the driver becomes the unpredictable element

Follow this trajectory far enough and the philosophical concern becomes a practical one. Imagine a road network filled with autonomous cars that communicate, maintain precise gaps, obey every restriction and behave in a completely predictable manner. Into that ordered stream arrives a human driver who changes lane late, accelerates unexpectedly, misses a sign or simply decides to take a corner for the pleasure of it.

To the system, the human becomes the dangerous variable.

At that point, allowing people to drive may begin to look as irrational to policymakers as permitting horses onto a motorway. Human-controlled cars could be restricted to particular roads, times or designated leisure areas. Insurance might become prohibitively expensive. Older cars without the required communications and assistance technology could be pushed further towards the margins.

This future sits some distance away, and fully autonomous driving still faces enormous technical, legal and social obstacles. The direction of travel should nevertheless concern anybody who values driving as more than the movement of a person from one location to another.

Driving gives us independence, responsibility and a satisfying sense of mechanical control. It requires observation, coordination, judgement and continuous decision-making. For enthusiasts, it can also be restorative, absorbing and joyful. Reduce the driver to a legally accountable supervisor of a machine that makes most of the decisions, and much of that meaning disappears.

Unfortunately, some human drivers are enthusiastically helping to make the case against us. Every social-media video showing somebody driving recklessly for views, performing stunts on a public road or filming themselves at ridiculous speeds provides another piece of evidence for those who believe people cannot be trusted with cars. If we want to defend the freedom to drive, we also have to defend the responsibility that comes with it.

What happens to classic cars?

Classic cars make this debate even more important. They have no lane centring, driver-monitoring cameras or automatic emergency braking. Many lack anti-lock brakes, power steering or even the sort of crash protection we now take for granted. Their appeal lies partly in the fact that they demand involvement. You listen, feel, anticipate and operate the machine yourself.

How will those cars coexist with an automated transport network built around permanent connectivity and machine-readable behaviour? Will they remain welcome on public roads, become tolerated exceptions, or eventually be treated as charming but unacceptable relics?

I have explored versions of this fear in my fiction. The ULEZ Files grew from anxiety about restrictions imposed upon motorists, while stories in Quantum Races imagine futures in which technology, regulation and changing social attitudes reshape our relationship with cars. Science fiction has an irritating habit of becoming a policy consultation if you leave it alone for long enough.

Assistance should preserve the driver

The valuable safety systems can stay, along with the screens. Carburettors, starting handles and directions scribbled on the back of a petrol receipt can remain in the past. Technology has brought enormous benefits, and many drivers will welcome assistance that makes a journey less stressful or helps them feel more confident.

The issue is balance. Assistance should support an attentive driver without constantly undermining their judgement. Controls should make it easy to understand what the car is doing and why. Drivers should be taught how these systems work, where their limits lie and how to remain competent without them. We should also retain meaningful choice over the functions that intervene in normal driving and clear control over the data generated by our cars.

Most importantly, we should continue practising the skills the technology offers to perform for us. Look over your shoulder as well as at the reversing camera. Understand the route instead of following the sat-nav in a trance. Maintain your own sense of distance and speed even when adaptive cruise control is active. Know how the car behaves when its electronic helpers are unavailable.

Modern cars may be able to steer, brake, park, navigate and monitor us, but ability does not automatically confer authority. The driver remains legally responsible and should remain intellectually and physically engaged.

Otherwise, the day may arrive when the car has learned to do everything and we have forgotten how to do anything. At that point, somebody will inevitably ask why human beings are still allowed behind the wheel at all.

And we may no longer have a convincing answer.

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