Well, well, well. Mercedes-Benz is apparently hitting the brakes on their touchscreen obsession and bringing back physical buttons. About bloody time, I say. This news has got me thinking about just how mental the whole car industry went with these tablet-sized screens controlling everything from your windshield wipers to your seat warmers.

The whole thing has been bonkers from the start, hasn’t it? For decades we’ve been told “don’t use your phone while driving” and “keep your eyes on the road,” then some genius in a boardroom decided to stick a massive computer screen right in the middle of our dashboards and make us navigate through seventeen different menus just to turn on the bloody air conditioning. The irony would be hilarious if it wasn’t so dangerous.

The other day, I stumbled upon an online discussion about someone getting ripped off by a motorcycle mechanic, and it struck a nerve. While I don’t ride motorcycles myself, the story resonated deeply with my own experiences in the automotive service industry.

Remember when mechanics were craftspeople who took pride in their work? These days, finding a trustworthy mechanic feels like searching for a needle in a haystack. The discussion brought back memories of my old Toyota getting “serviced” at a franchise mechanic shop in Tullamarine. They charged me an eye-watering amount, only for me to discover later that they hadn’t even changed the oil filter.

The recent Tesla recall of 700,000 vehicles for a tire pressure monitoring issue has sparked an interesting debate about what constitutes a “recall” in our increasingly software-driven world. While traditional recalls often meant bringing your vehicle to a dealership for hardware fixes, Tesla’s solution is a simple over-the-air software update that most owners will barely notice.

Working in software development, I find it fascinating how the automotive industry is grappling with this shift. The term “recall” carries heavy implications of faulty hardware and safety risks, yet here we have an issue that’s more akin to a smartphone app update. The specific problem - the tire pressure warning potentially not persisting after a system reboot - is certainly worth addressing, but hardly the kind of critical safety concern that traditionally prompted recalls.

The news about potential rollbacks of crash reporting requirements for autonomous vehicles has me deeply troubled. Working in tech, I’ve witnessed firsthand how critical data collection and transparency are for improving systems and ensuring public safety. Yet here we are, facing the prospect of less oversight in one of the most crucial areas of technological development.

Remember when we used to joke about the tech industry’s mantra of “move fast and break things”? Well, it’s considerably less amusing when we’re talking about actual vehicles on public roads. The push to eliminate crash reporting requirements feels like a dangerous step backward, especially considering the mounting concerns about autonomous vehicle safety.