The cars of today are loaded down with so much technology, some of it seemingly overkill. Do Teslas really need vents that are adjusted through a screen? Should an electric motorcycle really have a 10-inch display that doubles as a game monitor? Why is the sky blue? Look I don’t have the answers to at least two of those, but some features are still handy.
Car enthusiasts like to laugh at features like the towing assists in modern pickup trucks or the systems that remind parents to check backseats for children. We all like to think we’re better than to forget that we’ve left a person behind in our cars. But then again, humans, even smart ones, can get pretty dumb when they’re frazzled. I’m sure you’ve done something boneheaded in your life, right? Anyway, the 2025 Volvo EX90 is a cool but unfinished car that has one of those features, and I’m with V10omous here:
If you’re a mush-brain who forgets live humans in your back seat
I used to think the way you do, until I became a parent myself.
The odds of forgetting a kid might be very very low, but the consequences are so high that I get the point of these systems.
There are times in between multiple activities, errands, kids screaming themselves to sleep, etc that I really am a mush brain. I haven’t ever left a kid in the car, but I don’t mind the reminder.
It’s one of those things where I hope absolutely nobody will need to use it, but I’m glad it’s there.
This morning, Jason gave us some fun facts about ‘The Love Bug‘ including Buddy Hackett’s metal sculpture. Mike Harrell was too clever with this one:
…that instrument cluster and the nicely-arranged crown of lights and horns…
I believe it’s fair to say that the arrangement of horns near the top is also an instrument cluster.
This morning, Matt wrote about how Stellantis doesn’t deserve Jeep, but that’s not important. A few of you got into a conversation about some movie called ‘Gross Pointe Blank.’
AssMatt
“It’s good!”
“I know.”
I love Cusack in Grosse Pointe Blank, but he’s hard to like in High Fidelity. Is that good acting, good casting, or good direction?
Lockleaf
Gross Pointe Blank is an incredible film. I have thought of it as the shadow prequel to John Wick since Wick came out. Changed name, same character (got out because he got married etc), way darker tone. Its a movie I enjoy very shallowly, as I know there is a ton of social commentary in it, but I just like the silly assassin comedy.
The winner here is A.Barth:
I prefer to think of John Wick as happening in an alternate timeline where Bill and Ted failed their history report and Ted had to go to Oates Military Academy.
Let that sink into your head for a bit. Finally, Jason complained about how cars have terribly flat bumpers nowadays. NewBalanceExtraWide has the right idea:
Get the Bishop to add bumpers to modern SUVs as a design exercise.
Have a great evening!
Grosse Point Blank is one of my all time favorites. Especially Joan as the secretary. Also Minnie Driver is perfect and killing the guy with a pen and putting him in the furnace was over the top sick enjoyment. I could go on, the government agents in the bathroom, lunch with Ackroyd, “Doesn’t anyone buy American anymore?” Could be a perfect movie, especially for quotes. not quite Princess Bride or Madagascar !, but damn close
Thanks for the COTD and please accept my apologies for the comment itself.
Back-up cameras and rear seat monitors in every car to protect children but other industries’ products can kill countless and have no regulations. strange.
We should do nothing if we can’t do everything.
Can’t end homelessness? No one gets a home.
Can’t end hunger? Burn the fields.
Can’t stop school shootings? No backup cameras or rear seat monitors.
wow, you misunderstood. I am not calling for reduced car safety at all. did not mean to trigger you. I was just asking for more regulations elsewhere. not fewer. Jebus.
Why are we complaining about backseat alerts? It’s a simple system that probably does a lot of good. If you don’t need it, they are very easy to disable.
If you’re a non-kid-haver you can always just keep the back seat folded down by default.
Or just disable it. Every car I’ve encountered that had the alert, could turn it off in the vehicle settings.
Because they are usually just triggered by a back door opening, not actually knowing if something is in the seat. They go off erroneously so much you’ll ignore it the one time it is a real alert.
The ones I’m familiar with use a weight sensor in the seat. Just using the door is a poor design. I imagine that can still be disabled in the vehicle settings.
I only know 2 brands for sure, but since they are toyota and GM that’s a lot of vehicles.
Sure it’s easy to turn it off, but lots of people don’t go digging into the settings, or have no idea why it’s beeping at them in the first place.
People who actually need it will have learned to ignore it.
Have I left a kid in the backseat? No. But at times when I’ve been peak parent tired, I’ve forgotten all manner of basic things that I can totally understand how it happens as awful as it is. We’re finally at a stage where we’re a well-oiled machine for the most part but man, there were some pretty dark days when the kids were a bit younger, sleep was limited, and both my wife and I were basically zombies with dependents.
I like the stage they’re at and would hit pause if I could. But I DO NOT miss having babies, lol.
When we had 3 kids in diapers at once it got pretty nuts. We’d be halfway down the block and stop to look in the back seat for a head count just to make sure neither of us left the baby sitting on the sidewalk thinking the other one picked her up.
I have a lot of empathy for those who accidentally do this. To have that guilt on top of the grief of having lost a child…I’m not sure I could survive that.
100%. I’ve done the “take off your left shoe before your start driving and put it in the backseat with the baby so you can’t possibly forget” thing on mornings where I was particularly frazzled. I assume that’s why they have automatic transmissions.
I had pretty insane post-partum anxiety after my first. I remember several times sitting in meetings in the office trying not to have a full blown panic attack because I was afraid I left a kid in the backseat. Sounds like I was super vigilant, but really I was just so exhausted I couldn’t remember daycare drop off from an hour earlier. Would have been really easy to forget NOT doing drop off…
David Cameron, former Prime Minister of the UK, once managed to leave his daughter behind in a pub. Now I guess being PM is probably quite stressful, so it’s somewhat understandable, but somehow his police bodyguards also forgot her, which is a bit of an oops. (She was fine and he picked her up 15 mins later)
Leaving his child in a pub is a pretty solid analogy for what Cameron did to the UK, if you include him backing over the child while leaving the parking lot.
And he wasn’t even in the top three worst Tory PMs we’ve had in the last fifteen years. He somehow seemed to get away with the pig-f**king incident too.
Right after I replied to you I found myself telling the story of the PMs from Cameron to Sunak in regards to the child.
Teresa May sees the crying child in the parking lot. She spends an hour staring at the child and saying “I think that’s a fracture.” She eventually leaves. Boris Johnson brings the child into the pub and gives her a beer and some chips he swiped from another table. She hasn’t stopped crying, so he puts on some porn for her. Boris spends the rest of the time stammering awkwardly while everyone in the pub calls him an asshole. Liz Truss sticks her head in the door and tells the child the Queen is dead. Truss somehow changes the porn to bestiality despite never entering the pub. Rishi Sunak comes and takes the child’s beer and chips and gives them to his donors. He spends the rest of his time ignoring the child while the unspeakable things she is seeing cause permanent harm.
I’m an American, but my dad is from England so British politics get discussed often.
I’m not a parent, so maybe I should keep quiet, but I feel like forgetting the fact that your child has accompanied you on a journey is a symptom of a society (and individuals) that are overstretched and overstressed.
You are correct, it can happen to anyone. There are physicians and other white collar/advanced degree professionals who have left their children in their vehicles. Anyone saying they are too smart or attentive to do it is lying to themselves.
I think people who cry “how could you possibly forget you have a kid?!” don’t think through the situations where this happens.
Imagine you’re the parent that has a 30min 5:30am commute to work in the morning and the other parent is the one that takes the kid to day care. But one day they have a dr visit and they need you to take the kid. So you do, and you get into the car with your coffee and kid and both of you are tired because it’s 5-freaking-30am. On the way you’re thinking about this job and that job and the email you have to answer and the new guy you have to train and as soon as you walk in the door I’m going to do this then that then the other thing…and before you know it your head is fully into your daily routine. The one where you drive to work and dive in. And never have a kid with you. A kid that’s sound asleep in the back seat not making a sound.
I’ve never done it, but I can get how it happens.
As someone who has left groceries and restaurant to-go boxes in back seats, I welcome the back seat reminders.
EXCELLENT!! *air guitar riff*
Thanks, Mercedes! 🙂
Grosse Pointe Blank is a pretty darn good film, btw – definitely worth a watch.
The rest of the cast is fantastic, too! Peak Piven, skinny Hank Azaria, and Danny freaking Aykroyd?! All day. To say nothing of the soundtrack, and Minnie Driver’s impression of the Specials sample! Now I’m all worked up again. To Blockbuster!