3 Useless Inventions For Cars

Its inevitable that as technology improves, so we will gradually see more and more of it intruding into our daily lives. One area in particular seems to be that of the automobile. Whereas on the one hand this seems to be a good idea, with intelligent engines burning fuel more efficiently and adapting automatically to tricky road conditions, there have been a few innovations recently that might have been better left on the drawing board.

1.Fault reporting.
Time was, you knew where you were when that little red winking light on the dashboard caught your eye, or at least this would prompt a quick search for the car manual to find out what was wrong. Ah, engine oil. Who would have thought a car needed that?

Small, unobtrusive warning lights are one thing, but new advances from Toyota mean that your car may now start sending you text messages or flagging on your social profile when it needs a service.

Seriously? Yes, under the proposed social network, your car can now get friends from other Toyota owners, leading to the depressing situation that your car identical in most respects to just about every other production model can be more popular and connected than you, the driver.

One can only imagine what a messy break-up and selling second-hand may entail: serial stalking on Facebook . . . emotional and accusatory messages on your status wall . . . abusive texts at 3 AM waking you up.

2.Safety features.
Now Im not suggesting that safety is a bad thing, although it can clearly go too far. The pedestrian-mincing bull-bars on most inner city 4x4s, for example. The closest most modern Chelsea tractor drivers will get to a real bull is what the driver is discussing on their mobile phone as they slalom single-handedly through rush hour, however Volvo have now addressed a concern previously seen only in horror movies:

The heartbeat sensor.

With their new gadget, users can get a readout on their automatic unlocking system to see if anyone is waiting in their car before they get in!

One can only assume that an impressionable Volvo executive sat through Urban Legend late one night and had to go to bed with the lights on. That isnt denying that there may have been some tragic cases of crime that were committed by someone who had broken into a vehicle, but surely the incidences of death and calamity as a direct result of this pale into insignificance with the background levels of carnage on the road from more traditional sources?

3.Neck air curtain.
One of the advantages of open top sports cars and convertible saloons is that you can enjoy fine weather by putting the top down. The implied converse is that when the weather is miserable (i.e. about 95% of the time in the UK), you can keep the top up as per any other regular car.

Although there is some kudos in stubbornly driving around in a convertible classic car, this is only carried off perfectly by acquiring the necessary period driving hat and goggles. For those that want to appear both ostentatious and obnoxious however, there is now the possibility of a warm air curtain to keep the neck and shoulders above hypothermia as you cruise around in wintry conditions reminding the poor people what an expensive car you can afford to drive.

Designed to prevent terminal heat loss to the brain (arguably too far gone by this point after paying for the installation) for those who have forgotten or refuse to put the roof up in bad weather, the device is slightly marred by the fact that above a certain speed, the howling icy gale in the drivers seat completely overwhelms the warmth that it puts out.