In general I'm frustrated by the loss of consistency in operating cars. A couple years ago I volunteered to help valet cars at a charity dinner for a university

In general I'm frustrated by the loss of consistency in operating cars. A couple years ago I volunteered to help valet cars at a charity dinner for a university. Someone asked me because they knew that I drove manual so I'd be able to "drive anything." It was quite comical to discover how untrue this was, particularly since the event tended to attract people with luxury cars... A lot of luxury cars no longer have a conventional key but some kind of electronic system. Sometimes it is proximity based, so you simply have to have the key and push a button on the steering column or dashboard or maybe center console. Other cars have a key that has some kind of electrical connector and must be inserted into the side of the steering column and then you push a button, and still another one I drove seemed to have a proximity key but you had to stick it into the side of the steering column and turn to start the engine. Then you have to figure out the parking brake... Used to be that it was a ratchet pedal, or a handle in the center console, or one of those pull-and-twist deals in some 4x4s. This was already a little annoying, but now there's a huge diversity of buttons and toggles in non-obvious places. At least the electrical ones usually disengage if you hit the gas. Now for the automatic gear selector... One guy somewhat sheepishly apologizes that his car was hard to drive... but it was an old stick-shift 4runner with a strange feeling clutch. That one I was actually able to work out!