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this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2026
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Back up cameras are awesome because you can see all the way to the ground. They are a massive safety benefit just like airbags, seat belts, and crumple zones.
Backup cameras existing are not the reason that their screens were misused for other negative purposes and you can't blame them any more than you can blame better brakes for increasing vehicle weights because they are better at stopping.
Theyre fine, but then that shit is mandated and now suddenly every car is required to have a screen and no physical buttons with outdated shit software. Thats the issue. Tech will always lead to enshittification. I'd rather have none of it, and I'm pissed off that I have no choice, other than used cars, of which the US government crushed hundreds of thousands to further make us poorer and force us into new surveillance mobiles they can control on a whim.
What the fuck happened to being able to spec my car exactly as I want ? Thats why the mustang was such a success. You want a radio? Cool check the box. You dont want it? OK no problem dont check the box.
Want a camera? Get a kit you can install or have a shop install. It doesn't need to be mandated.
That doesn't exist now. You automatically get all these bullshit doodads no one wants or cares about that also make the car far more expensive and unreliable and unrepairable.
I don't want a modem. I don't want a screen. I don't want electric seats. I don't want cameras. Sure, I'll take airbags and seatbelts, but none of that requires the other junk.
My car has physical buttons for all the important stuff, standard dash interface for the panel, and runs open source software on the relatively small central infotainment screen.. And the telemetry and transmission stuff can be easily disabled by pulling a fuse or removing a module behind the screen, depending on your goals. It’s a 2023 bolt base package, no bells and whistles unless you count lane assist, which can be disabled, and the backup camera. If chevy stops supporting it, it’ll become a community project.
There are choices. Not many, but they are there.
Yeah very few. And they killed the volt so I wouldn't be surprised if the bolt is next.
No car is required to have no physical buttons. They do that because it's cheaper for the screen to be a touchscreen than to spend pennies on buttons. The regulation only specifies that there has to be a camera. The screen can still be controlled by buttons or rotary dials. Mercedes was still doing that up till the early 2020s for some models. My 2019 C-Class had no touch screen, despite having a nice wide and clear screen. Exactly how I preferred it.
If theres gonna be regulation, I want it regulated that every car have physical buttons, and blinding high beams are illegal, modem connectivity is illegal, and subscription seats are illegal along with locked down ecus that can only be unlocked at dealers (see: Volkswagen electronic e brakes) being illegal. This is how legislation should work for us but it doesn't. We get garbage that makes all our lives worse.
That isn't a requirement, just companies chasing shitty trends. Several brands never dropped the physical air conditioning and volume controls from the dashboard or reversed it within a year or two based on feedback.
You are ranting about industry trends and conflating them with safety requirements. Those things are intertwined in some ways but the majority of your rant has nothing to do with actual requirements, just shitty cost cutting choices.
Sure, but they are intertwined, which is what I'm getting at.
The gov and carmakers are far too mixed together for me. We should be able to get anything we want, and we can't.