Driving a rental car in Germany almost makes me cheer for the ongoing bankruptcy of their auto industry. It really needs a full reset at this point. Sad thing is EU law mandates for a modem in the car as well as intrusive driving aids that actually make driving less safe by constantly driving your attention away from the road[1]. So there is no hope to get a minimally decent car in Europe in the near future, unless a wider reset also happens at the political and social level.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-S76WEl25k

I recently saw a reportage about emergency call-takers. As you watch them work you'll notice they get an automatic call from the crashed car long before any human calls them, presumably from that modem.

I'm not arguing that the modem should be mandatory, or that you shouldn't be able to control what it does. But forcing car vendors who want to built in a modem to make this modem do an automatic emergency call by default, that seems quite sensible. Even more sensible would be if the modem did nothing unless you allow it, except when it detects that crash, but... profits.

That is one of the best, most profound and prescient videos I have ever seen.

Whoever came up with the idea that the car should beep loudly even close to the speed limit has clearly never driven a car. The best way to silence it is to constantly be over the speed limit or well below.