If you’re anything like me and drive an older 4×4, there’s a fair chance you’ve caught yourself talking to it. 

Sometimes, an ageing rig just needs a bit of gentle encouragement to crest the next hill or crawl through a tricky section of track – maybe a quiet “come on, girl” and a reassuring pat on the dash to get her through. When this happens, the only reply I want to hear is the engine picking up revs as we clear the hill and power on. I don’t need a car to talk back – but these days, many new vehicles do exactly that, and not always in a good way!

Modern cars are constantly nagging the driver with safety warnings, speed alerts, traffic updates and all sorts of unnecessary chatter. Some even feel the need to tell you when there’s a curve ahead or a lane merging – things you’d already notice if you were looking out the windscreen instead of glancing down to see what all the chimes are about. One car I drove recently even displayed conversation prompts on the multimedia screen, suggesting topics to discuss with the car! 

Thankfully, I can drown most of it out by turning up the radio – but I really shouldn’t have to.

The crazy thing is, all of these so-called safety systems are actually distracting the driver – encouraging you to take your eyes off the road to respond to prompts and warnings. Road-safety pundits love to blame mobile phones and passengers for driver distraction, but increasingly, it’s the vehicles themselves that are drawing attention away from what really matters.

And the irony? These same safety advocates are the ones pushing for these intrusive systems so manufacturers can tick the boxes needed for a five-star safety rating. When is enough, enough? Of course, the response is always the same: “Enough is enough when there are no more road accidents.” But that’s an impossible target – one that will never be achieved.

In the meantime, we’re stuck with technology that, ironically, only increases driver distraction under the guise of improving safety.

MORE Safety alerts and chimes are distracting drivers, and it’s becoming dangerous