Exactly fifteen years ago Volkswagen introduced the dual-clutch transmission — revolutionizing the use of automated transmissions, with a faster, cleaner and less costly way of shifting gears.

Ever since Volkswagen first offered the dual-clutch to the European market, the automotive industry changed significantly. And automated transmission were leading the rise. At the turn of the century, 14% of all new cars were fitted with an automated transmission, now that’s close to 35% of all cars produced globally.

‘Young drivers now fearlessly hit the circuit in a Ferrari’

“We notice an increased mobility among young drivers. Lots of children grow up driving electronic miniature cars in their early years, and racing go-karts in puberty. That used to be different. Now they spend hours of time on a gaming console, fully equipped with a very realistic driving wheel and flipping gears. It is these young drivers who lack fear and drive on the circuit of Zandvoort in a Ferrari without any problems.” says former racing driver Michael Bleekemolen.

At the same time, Michael — founder of the first indoor go-karting track in Europe—notices an ‘in-between generation’ around the age of 35, who spend hours on public roads and never slided with their car as these are fully equipped with modern safety and Advanced Driver Assistance Systems. “This is the reason drivers of this generation loose sight of what’s actually happening with a car. Although elderly drivers, which I consider myself to be as well, are perhaps not the best drivers, they know the ropes.”

‘New age drivers suffer from technological coddling’

While the manual transmission fluently faded, electronic parking brakes were on the rise. Cargusus illustrated that only 37% of all new cars in the United Kingdom are fitted with a traditional manual parking brake.

A traditional handbrake is very simple — pull the lever up and you pull two cables which run to each of the rear brakes. By adding tension to these cables, the brake pads or shoes squeeze against the discs (or drums) to hold the rear wheels firmly in place.

Put simply, an electronic parking brake replaces this mechanical system with an electrical one. By pressing the switch, motors on each brake caliper squeeze the pads into the disc. You’ll hear a reassuring whirring of the motors as the button is pressed (or pulled), meaning that you know that the car is held safely.

Manufacturers Dacia and Suzuki are the only ones still producing cars with traditional parking brakes. On the other side of the spectrum are manufacturers like Jaguar, Land Rover, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche, who completely removed traditional parking brakes from their catalogue.

This braking technology was introduced with the launch of the BMW 7-series in 2001, experiencing a significant rise ever since. “Modern drivers suffer from technological coddling. The Spartan way of driving is gone. Part of that makes me sad because drivers, irrespective of their generation, don’t experience real driving’’, according to Bleekemolen.

The essence of driving is not only fading due to emerging technologies, there is a steep decline in social acceptance of traffic antics as well. Where speeding could generally rely on at least a bit of understanding, performing doughnuts on an empty parking lot or drifting through the snow is now absolutely not-done. Which seems only fair.

Advanced Driving Assistance visualization | credits: viatech.com

‘Drivers should be able to drive’

Up until now all safety-kits and Advanced Driving Assistance Systems fail to reduce the amount of accidents. In fact, reports from Automotive Insiders, Oude Essink Business Advisory and Solera confirm that cars equipped with such systems have almost 10% more change at getting involved in an accident.

Part of the problem with these ADAS systems being misused is driver complacency. The systems work so well in most situations that drivers begin to let their attention waver for longer and more extended periods of time. No matter what any manufacturer may tell you, self-driving cars are not yet a thing. These systems are designed to assist drivers, not replace them, but people are still tuning out on their commute, letting technology take the wheel, and they’re crashing.

Human drivers are overly trusting the vehicle’s ability to govern itself and repeatedly hesitate to intervene in situations that needed a human driver. The Dutch Central Bureau of Driving — where applications for driving licenses are assessed — is aware of the disruptive driver assistance systems. Their starting point remains however intact; how people drive cars themselves is what’s being examined. “Even though driving technologies which could assist, or even replace, drivers’ tasks continuously emerge, we want drivers to be able to simply asses distance and drive between the lines. Drivers should be able to drive.’” says a spokesman of the Bureau.

The second major problem is the way in which emergency braking systems are designed to work.

Ars Technica did a fantastic deep-dive on why adaptive cruise control (and thus automatic emergency braking, as the two technologies are inexorably linked) ignore stationary objects.

Essentially, most adaptive cruise control systems use radar to calculate the distance between your vehicle and the vehicle in front of it. Although radar is excellent at determining the speed of things, it is terrible at defining objects that may be around the vehicle. Designers of these systems did the most straightforward thing and made it so the system ignored stationary objects. Problem is, adaptive cruise and automatic emergency braking systems are typically not linked to other ADAS systems like active lane-keeping assistance, so the system lacks outside reference and is incapable of dealing with a stopped car that is all of a sudden in its path. If a driver is paying proper attention, as they should, an emergency lane change or hard manual application of the brakes would probably stop a crash from happening, but increasingly drivers aren’t paying attention.