I am convinced that some safety features (such as lane assist, for example), actually make roads less safe on net, because they allow or encourage drivers to be less engaged in the act of driving. But then, if it were up to me we'd all be driving manual transmissions.

Even if they do make people safer "on average" these systems are not tested by a lot of the auto-safety organizations. In fact, some of these organizations simply bump up the "safety rating" automatically depending on how many "safety" features are included, without actually testing the effectiveness of the feature.

This is important, because forward collusion detection is not a binary thing. Each auto maker has their own set of parameters, sensors and implementations to achieve a similar goal, but each act independently.

I would also prefer if people were more engaged with driving too. I don't think we should encourage people to "rely" on these systems to keep them out of trouble as these systems can and do act unpredictably and may harm other road users as a result of a programming decision since the car in front acted unexpectedly.

I think the whole automation of everything in a car is a bit silly. Transmissions are whatever for me, although the full lane assist, cruise control, adaptive cruise control, even automatic wipers and headlights makes people feel so much more disconnected from the car, which I think leads to unsafe habits or worse, unable to handle the car in situations where the automatic systems fail or become unreliable (e.g poor visibility, wet roads, unmapped roads, off-road, obstructions on the road, road works, etc).

I see what you mean but some features are great. The ones that stops automatically to not run over cyclists and pedestrians for example.

Also why manual transmissions for everyone ? It’s kinda slow and cumbersome. It’s fun to pretend play being a good pilot, but that’s obsolete.

> I am convinced that some safety features (such as lane assist, for example), actually make roads less safe on net, because they allow or encourage drivers to be less engaged in the act of driving.

"Birth control leads to riskier behavior and more pregnancies."