OneAndOneIs2

Driving home from the school I'm observing at this week, I was stuck behind a slow-moving geriatric driver. One of the annoying ones who crawls along at 40 in the 60 limits, then screams off at 40 when you get into a 30 limit.

People consistently below the limit, I can cope with. People who stick at one speed regardless of all other considerations... get on my nerves. When they're in front of me, anyway.

Anyway, the car being driven by this nuisance was a Toyota. It reminded me on the single stupidest car slogan I ever saw, which was of course "The car in front is a Toyota" - I assume they meant that the superior car that was so fast and maneuverable that it left you behind was naturally going to be a Toyota.

But it doesn't work like that. 99% of the time, the car in front is a bloody nuisance that's being badly driven.

Thinking about cars and annoyances reminded me of my recent trip to the USA, where the rented car had all kinds of irritating "helpful" features (remember the Word paperclip..?) and to a train of thought I had in the taxi on my way to the airport before that, when I decided what features I would build into my kit car(s) in the event I ever move somewhere that allows me to actually build one (or more)

So:

A petrol cap on both sides of the car.
How many times have you asked/been asked "What side is the petrol cap on this car?" How many times have you gone to refuel only to find that the only available pump is on the wrong side? Such a simple thing to remedy.. one cap on each side, job done.

Semi-automatic windscreen wipers
A detector that triggers the wipers when there's just enough rain on the screen to be worth wiping off, I like the idea of. Never had one, but want one.
Wipers that get turned on for a fixed number of wipes every time you spray screenwash, I dislike intensely, but have had on every car I've ever owned. Most annoying on days when you're low on screenwash or it's cold enough that the pipes are frozen solid so the wipers scrape over dry glass, smearing the dirt and squeaking painfully. I don't like ANY technology that tries to be helpful that you can't turn off.

Non-automatic-off indicators
This might make the car illegal, for all I know.. but not only do I not like my indicators getting turned off by MY car, I think this is a feature that should be illegal on ALL cars. Because (a) they're crap, and (b) people are idiots.

(a) mostly strikes on large roundabouts where you straighten and turn more than once, and your indicator is thus turned off when you don't want it to. Unwantedly helpful

(b) is mostly a problem because people seem to think that because there is something to turn them off automatically, they should never turn them off by hand. So in the event that their turn doesn't trigger the signal deactivation, they don't turn it off, or notice that the signal is still there.

Banning the damn things altogether would mean that your signal doesn't get turned off unwantedly, and everybody would get into the habit of turning their signals off as well as on.

Night vision screen
A gadget I first saw on Top Gear, easily doable very cheaply when you know how to modify a simple webcam to work with IR. Which of course, I do. An IR lamp and a hacked cam and you can see the road ahead in veritably flood-lit conditions, without having anti-social full-beam headlights on. In fact, you could even turn your headlamps off and freak out all the other drivers :o)

An electric heater
I had this on one car.. all the others rely on heat from the engine to warm the air. Takes forever to defrost on icy mornings. Sick of it.

Multiple cigarette lighters
I understand why there was only ever one of these in the early days, when these sockets were used to light cigarettes. But now, when they're general-purpose power sources for all manner of gadgets? A modern car may need power for the mobile phone, GPS, and iPod all at once, why is there only ONE plug socket??

I think there were others.. but I can't remember any more.

Suggestions..?