Cruise control tech....

dereksbicycles

dereksbicycles

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Hello, this is steering wheel of my parent's 2011 Ford Escape. Notice the cruise control option. It makes you think of history of vehicles. Do anyone of you remember when you wouldn't get such option for a vehicle? They then became available. With today's cruise controls, you can increase speed. I remember all the years of driving, you would set cruise control for 55 MPH. If you wanted to set it at 60, you had to go off cruise control and then reset it for 60. Now you can set it for 55 and just increase or decrease speed using +/- option. Is that a cool gadget or what?
 

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Not only is that cool but some of the latest fancy luxury cars even have a sensor in front so that it will maintain a constant distance from the car in front. After all it does get annoying having to keep +/- so you don't tailgate the car.
 
dereksbicycles said:
Hello, this is steering wheel of my parent's 2011 Ford Escape. Notice the cruise control option. It makes you think of history of vehicles. Do anyone of you remember when you wouldn't get such option for a vehicle? ...
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Yes, I remember.

I rarely use cruise control.
 
Yes I remember no cruse control, or air conditioning, power brakes and power steering. And also, although not an electronic item, there where no seat belts. Those where while I was a kid.

In the late 1950's my dad, who sold cars, predicted that air conditioning would come way down in price but not become standard equipment because in some places in the northern part of the US it wouldn't be needed.

One thing in the way of tech from that era that we have lost is the "autronic eye" that GM offered that would dim headlights when meeting another car on a two lane road at night. The problem was there were also reflective bill boards along roads at the time and the dimmer was reacting to the reflection.
 
We had AC in our cars since the 50's but no seat belts until I was a teenager. Even then, the first belts were just belts, no shoulder straps, and were a bear to adjust. They were more like airplane seat belts.

No car seats for infants or toddlers back then. I remember my younger brother was in a so-called car seat. It had metal hooks that rested over the back of the front seat. It had an unpadded metal frame, and a plastic toy steering wheel to play with. A death trap for sure! Of course, in an impact, anyone would be blinded or impaled on the chrome knobs of the dashboard.
 
Reba said:
We had AC in our cars since the 50's but no seat belts until I was a teenager. Even then, the first belts were just belts, no shoulder straps, and were a bear to adjust. They were more like airplane seat belts.

No car seats for infants or toddlers back then. I remember my younger brother was in a so-called car seat. It had metal hooks that rested over the back of the front seat. It had an unpadded metal frame, and a plastic toy steering wheel to play with. A death trap for sure! Of course, in an impact, anyone would be blinded or impaled on the chrome knobs of the dashboard.
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And they offered them in the front seat before the back. And I can remember being in cars that had shoulder belts for everyone except the center back passenger!
 
Jane B. said:
And they offered them in the front seat before the back. And I can remember being in cars that had shoulder belts for everyone except the center back passenger!
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My 2000 Jeep Cherokee doesn't have a shoulder belt for the rear center passenger (not that I ever have one). It also doesn't have headrests for the back seat.
 
It was an interesting change going from a 1986 Voyager to a 1991 Toyota Previa for my family. The rear seats did have shoulder strap belts in Previa, but not Voyager.

In every cars we had as a family growing up, there were no shoulder strap belts in rear.

My family did have a 1990 Mazda Protégé. I cannot remember if it had strap belts in rear. I don't think it did. It is because no one of us really cared to use belt in rear. It wasn't the law to use rear belts back then so no worry. It is now.
 
A Nihilist said:
Not only is that cool but some of the latest fancy luxury cars even have a sensor in front so that it will maintain a constant distance from the car in front. After all it does get annoying having to keep +/- so you don't tailgate the car.
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I didn't know about those sensors. Nice feature to have. I imagine that it is for the rich and only the rich people.
 
BMW Technology Guide: Cruise control

Some Bimmers will even slow down automatically when making a turn and you can even specify how close to follow the car in front of you. I can just see a whitewhine about how someone has to manually adjust the distance on their $100k BMW :lol:
 
whitewhine.com first world problems such as "I have so many clothes they won't fit in my closet"
 
Not sure what my parent's 1984 Renault had in the way of safety features, but the longest car my father had was an early 90's mitsubishi and it had a really primative cruise control and up until a few years ago, my father never used cruise control and had no idea what it was.

Anyone remember the simpsons where Bart got a fake license and rented a car "Cruise control my man" before driving off into a corn field? lol
 
The biggest changed over the years not only about seat belts or cruise control, but more cars are going into "electric" instead of hydraulic or cables like electric motor drive for cruise control (this involved sensor to keep the distance in front of the car), electric accelerator, electric power steering and pretty soon it going to come out with electric AC. I can see that hydraulic systems are going and gone so it allow to give a better gas mileage. Or in other way..that engine will become beltless drives.
 
I remember my dad's new 1963 Oldsmobile. He had to special order seat belts. They were not mandatory for a few more years. The radio was AM only. FM was an option. No head rests, drum brakes, mechanical distributor and a completely metal dashboard.

My 06 Jeep Commander Limited has all the normal power goodies standard including: auto headlight dimming sensor, auto wiper sensor with speed control, auto dimming review mirror (includes the outside mirrors), power floor pedals, overhead garage door opener (built in to the overhead), backup sensors (audible and visual lights when you look in your mirror), air pressure sensors on 5 wheels, 8 airbags, power seats with 2 memory settings, heated seats/lower back, traction control, dual climate control, a separate AC/heat unit for the third row seating, towing button to control the transmission, smart transmission (learns your driving habits and adjusts automatically), MDS (shifts from 8 to 4 cylinders and back for fuel economy), no distributor or plug wires. But, NO SHOULDER BELT for the second row center seat.

I believe I still felt safer driving that old Olds back in the 60's. :lol:
 
I do have cruise control on my 6 speed stick shift car... but I rarely use cruise control.
 
I have cruise on all vehicles including my motorcycle. The motorcycle is a twist the throttle and press the lock to set. Unlock to return to normal so it is still primitive.
 
SneakerNet said:
The biggest changed over the years not only about seat belts or cruise control, but more cars are going into "electric" instead of hydraulic or cables like electric motor drive for cruise control (this involved sensor to keep the distance in front of the car), electric accelerator, electric power steering and pretty soon it going to come out with electric AC. I can see that hydraulic systems are going and gone so it allow to give a better gas mileage. Or in other way..that engine will become beltless drives.
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Correct about better gas milesage. The brake system still use hydraulic systems and it's better than electric for safely when power outage or glitch and won't make a diff for gas milesage.
 
TinCanSailor said:
I have cruise on all vehicles including my motorcycle. The motorcycle is a twist the throttle and press the lock to set. Unlock to return to normal so it is still primitive.
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Lucky! My bike doesn't have one, but the throttle is a bit sticky, so it kind of acts like one..lol
 
I was just excited to have a manual tranny that came with Cruise Control honestly. :laugh2: They used to not happen back when I first started driving. :( Now they just need to make one for my motorcycle! :D
 
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