We see the new technological innovations made part of the modern day cars on the regular basis. These technologies are mostly for the benefit of the reputation of the brands as well as the comfort of the people. But there are some technologies which seem extravagant and complicated making the driving experience challenging and troublesome. One of such technologies is the use of fancy gear shifters in modern day automatic cars which has resulted in a number of roads accidents and injury to the drivers, especially in the USA. The nature of these gear shifter is highly complex and drivers find them very difficult to operate them. This is why the traffic authorities in the USA are discouraging the automakers from the use of fancy gear shifters in the new automatic cars.
Car Brands which have Fancy Gear Shifters
Almost all top brands in recent times have looked to embed fancy gear shifters and shift knobs inside their automatic vehicles. The trend of putting such gear knobs in the cars has evolved so fast that most of the new cars have great variations from each other in the style of the gears.
The NHTSA is highly concerned about the design of the shifters as they are quite confusing for the drivers. The car brands like Jeep, Ford, Honda, Mercedes and Acura have weird gear shifters and all of them are totally changed from each other. Any driver shifting from one car to another will have great discomfort to get used to these gears hence the chances of bad road accidents and injuries escalate.
Types of Gear Shifters
There are many different types of Gear shifters in different cars. The main reasons why the traffic authorities are discouraging the automotive companies from the use of fancy gears is because they are not uniform for their type and functionality in all automatic cars. The excess of variety is the issue that concerns drivers as well as the authorities.
Following are few of the automatic cars with their own types of fancy gear shifters in them:
- Honda and Acura have weird push button setup for shifting gears
- Lincoln cars have the Push button on the dashboard
- Jaguar has a gear shifter that rises electronically out of the console in the center
- Mercedes has another kind of shifter with a stalk with Push function for neutral, up for reverse and down for the driving.
Read also: 5 Bad Habits to Avoid While Driving a Manual Transmission Car
What’s wrong with the Fancy Gear Shifters?
Having fancy gear shifters is not a good idea for the automatic cars as it demands the extended attention of the driver and feeds the driver with bad visual and tactile response. The severity of the problem is such that 100 crashes have been recorded and many injuries have been sustained by drivers due to the fancy gears in the USA. The simple gear shifters might not look very trendy and stylish but they feed the purpose in the most simplistic way. There was no demand from the customers to improve the design or placement of the gear shifters so the fancy gears is not a conceivable idea at all.
The traffic authorities in the USA are now abandoning the vehicles that have weird gear shifters and asking the automakers to bring simplicity in the design of their gear shifters in automatic cars.
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