Retrospective: Automatic For The People

Back in December I found myself driving a biggish Vauxhall Insignia, basically because we felt we needed a big car for all our luggage. In the event we were later able to manage with a smaller Kia Soul, a car I much preferred driving. Not that there was anything wrong with the Insignia in terms of its handling. Both cars were easy to drive in that respect - and it was nice to get back to driving using manual gears, much as I enjoy the ease of the automatic Toyota Axio I drive over here. (Basically we have an automatic to reduce the strain on my back in heavy traffic.) But what I'm leading up to is the irritation the Insignia engendered as a result of all the pointless bells and whistles on board.

In ten days of driving it I never got the hang of all the buttons to press on the dashboard. To take but one example: for some reason they now make cars with headlights that automatically turn on, whether you want them to or not. There's a way to stop this, but it's just one more thing to think about and press that you don't really need on your mind. And they've got rid of the trusty handbrake, replacing it with a little button that doesn't quite work as a handbrake used to. As far as I can figure out, you're supposed to trust the car to hold itself where it is on a hill, if you've employed the handbrake (or the funny little stand-in they supply) as you transfer your right foot from the footbrake to the accelerator. (Because the new-fangled brake-thingie won't release unless you've got your foot on the footbrake.) I checked this in the driver's manual and couldn't make any sense of the instructions. Anyway, I elected to hold the car on the clutch and avoid the dratted little switch as much as I could. Whose idea was it, I wonder, to get rid of the perfectly sane and serviceable brake that fitted the hand so neatly and usefully?

The greatest irony is that despite the vehicle being able to tell me about the outside temperature and my fuel consumption and the like, it couldn't spot a devious speed camera. The result: I've been summonsed for hitting a measly 37 mph in a 30 mph zone!! The injustice! I rest my case, your honour.