4 ms·
Much of that stuff has been standardized over a century. They weren't always that way on all cars. For example, you cite the steering wheel as intuitive and o
by Arizhel 10y ago
Much of that stuff has been standardized over a century. They weren't always that way on all cars.
For example, you cite the steering wheel as intuitive and obvious. It's actually not: in many early cars, there was no steering wheel. They had a "tiller" instead (a lever that you pushed from side to side to steer). There was a huge debate at the time over whether tillers or steering wheels were better. Obviously, the steering wheel won out, but if you could transport some people from 1895 to today, they'll complain that tillers should have been used instead.
The gear shifter is another example. If you drive a stick, you probably take it for granted that the gearshift is a lever in the middle between the seats. It wasn't that long ago that some cars and trucks had "3 on the column": the gearshift (manual transmission) was on the steering column. And automatic transmission gearshifts on the column persisted much longer than that; I think it took until the 90s for them to finally die out.
Turn signals aren't that obvious either; you're just used to them. My mom got a ticket in 1965 because her boss gave her his car keys to drive his car somewhere nearby. She had never driven a car before, only ridden as a passenger, but of course didn't tell him this because it would look really bad. She managed driving it ok (steering, gas), probably because she had watched others do it, but she screwed up with the turn signals and signaled the wrong direction for a turn while a cop was looking.
Most "intuitive" things aren't intuitive at all; people are just used to them because they're more or less standardized, and people have gotten used to them or have watched other people use them and learned that way. Take some primitive person from the Amazon rainforest who's never even seen a car and stick him in one (on a closed track) and see how well he figures out how to operate it. If he can't figure it out very quickly with zero instruction, then it's not "intuitive".
- jdhzzz 10y agoI just drove a 2006ish BMW and was confused at the turn signal as it didn't "click in" when pushed up or down but immediately returned to center. It operated correctly though, turning off when the turn was completed. Also the windshield wiper control was "opposite" of what I am accustomed to: down was pulse and up was constant. I got mad the first two times I wanted pulse but then realized it was better as my right hand is typically above the stalk on the steering wheel and it is much easier to simply swipe down than have to swipe down then up.
- brokenmachine 10y agoMy car was built in Europe so the turn signals are to the left of the wheel and the wiper controls on the right. I'm used to it now but I can't tell you how many times I put the wipers on instead of indicating when I first got the car. The car is a right-hand drive car (I'm in Australia) and a manual, so I actually think it's a bit stupid because both the gearstick and the indicator are on the left side of the steering wheel. So it's not really possible to indicate while changing gears. Perhaps that is part of the reason that people with European cars are so infamous for not indicating!
- Arizhel 10y agoUnlikely. All the European cars I've seen also have the signals on the left stalk. However, this is the US, where the steering wheel is also on the left. It sounds like your car cheaped out and kept the same control layout for both LHD and RHD versions. Having never driven in a LHD country, I have no idea what other car companies do about this.
- brokenmachine 10y agoI suspect you're right about them cheaping out on my car, but I have also driven a LHD Audi that had the same setup. So it might be common to cheap out in that way. Can any other LHD people with european cars comment? Are your indicators on the left side of the steering wheel also?
- Avernar 10y agoCan you imagine a head on collision with a tiller instead of a wheel? Especially before seat belts became mandatory. And forget about an air bag in there. Might as well put a bullet in there instead and finish off he driver before he impaled himself.
- Arizhel 10y agoI never said it really was superior, just that some people (living around 1900) thought so. Also, we're talking about how "intuitive" a user interface is here, not about the safety implications. It took many decades for cars to finally get airbags, collapsible steering columns, etc. It was quite routine for people to be impaled on steering columns until the late 20th century.
- Avernar 10y agoI wasn't arguing about superiority. It was just a though of what things would be like if it had gone the other way. Speaking of intuitive, a tiller on a car is only intuitive if you've used it on a boat. Pushing the lever in the opposite direction of where you want to go is counter-intuitive.
- technofiend 10y agoMy wife's favorite aunt lost her first husband to exactly that: he was impaled by a tiller. Gruesome.