Re: What is truly disrupting...
"A mate of mine used a Honda Civic hire car on holiday... He reported that he was shocked not to be able to see the four corners of the car through the windows / mirrors. I guess reversing cameras and image stitching can mitigate this issue in more modern vehicles."
We're in a strange world of car design being dictated by crash tests and air tunnels. If you put a new Civic against one from 1999, and then another from from 1989, you'll notice how large the drivers window is in height (for an example). The bottom of the window will roughly be just above your elbow if you sat down normally without resting it on the window sill. The new Civic's (and new cars in general), this line will be much higher up, towards the shoulder. It's for side impact protection.
Another point would be the A pillars, older cars have thinner pillars while newer cars are much thicker. This is for rollover protection.
The thing is though, with all these things being built in to the car to help protect you from a crash, they're hampering the view of the driver. I don't understand how that's safer? I have so much better visibility in my 1998 Toyota Corolla than I do in my 2010 Peugeot 107. It's madness.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
