More proof that humans have evolved to a higher level of consciousness. Parking dings are a thing of the past. Bumpers? They’s so 20th Century.
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Bumpers haven’t been all that useful for much of automotive history, at least in preventing damage or injury. We have to go back 100 years to a time when bumpers were attached to a large spring and a car could usually bounce after an impact sparing perhaps damage but likely not physical harm. Then of course there were the clunky crash absorbing bumpers of the mid 70’s, which offered little protection and added cost and weight. It is likely the use of the now required backup cameras likely has a more pronounced impact on minimizing damage; they make for a great parking aid and of course some cars now park themselves or attempt to avoid low speed collisions thanks to this kind of technology.
Since you’ve got me started…..
Back when I started driving, people had more respect for another person’s property. You were more careful when you drove. Oh, for sure you had fewer distractions inside the car, but you were also more aware of your car’s power – in my case because there was so little of it – and you were more able to control that power to place the car just where you wanted when parking. In my part of Australia, part of the driving test included reverse-parking into a tight space. This was weighted such that if you bungled the park, you had to be almost flawless for the rest of the test to get a licence.
Nowadays with cars being so much more powerful, how many drivers can control that power when parking? How many drivers have a sense of just how big their car is? How many drivers ever develop that sense of one-ness with their car that enables them to place it just right here and not there?
And yet now we have cars without bumpers…