EU requires all new cars to have cameras facing the driver’s face to monitor their behaviour

[NutellaEllaElla]

https://www.carscoops.com/2026/07/eu-driver-monitoring-mandate/

Is anyone else unhappy about this? I hate how technology is invading my life. In my car it gets speed limits wrong all the time, it fights me trying to change lanes without indicating (and I don’t need to, again the car doesn’t know), there’s just so much it gets wrong and the tech itself is a distraction. I’m all for options, but I want to be able to turn it off as well please. Is there no end? Can we resist??

Not derailing, just opposing your view that modern tech filled cars are better, but whatever...

What, for the next 60 years?

Satire?

Indeed it does... but no government department is ever going to pressure/compel you to pay to subscribe to getting heated seats or a better stereo system or whatever, are they?

Well all these recent driving assist functions must be doing some good because the insurance is cheaper with them.

😂. I think Brainstorm had a Brainfart!

Ahh well - other tactics needed then - think more robowars!

No, just my personal situation and ponderings.

😂

Not necessarily. Just like, if you shut somebody up in their home and refused to let them leave, they'd be far less likely to need to claim on travel insurance than another person who can move around freely.

The insurance companies don't care about all the false positives and many annoyances they cause to drivers, as long as overall, they prevent/restrict some accidents.

Parking cameras will help to stop you from reversing into a wall, in the same way as they will scream at you if there are random leaves about to brush the side of your car... but the upshot is that they will indeed help to prevent more accidents than if they weren't there. Just like, if the police arrested everybody, they would catch more criminals... which is amazing, as long as we just ignore all of the many non-criminals whom they also apprehend as statistically insignificant to an outsider who isn't one of them.

On a road I travel a lot, the speed limit is 40, but a turning left changes to 30. But stays 40 if don’t turn onto that road. The car beeps constantly!
Also was beeping at me the other week on a 60 road and I was going 50. God knows why it thought was a 30 road!
Also the stupid car tries to pull me in the middle lane on the motorway!!
It also doesn’t like the speed bumps at 10mph the car thinks there is something in the road, I mean there is but it’s a speed bump!

My new French car has this and it doesn’t bother me.

I don’t like the lane change steering pulling though.

I guess all this is why older cars are getting so popular again.
My kids tell me that lots of people online are asking how to make their 'smart' appliances etc dumb. I feel their pain.

Agree with this.

I went in a driverless uber today, it was not any different except for the door locking stuff which I didnt like. It also wont start until you have put on your seat belt.

“Call me a conspiracy nut, but I can't help wondering if this might be all deliberately planned to soften us up to driverless cars, whether we like them or not”

I’m older, but am okay with whatever tech is thrown at me. But I’ve always hated driving, it being a means to an end at best. That said, I’m an OK driver, albeit I don’t go that far, it’s just something I don’t like doing.

I would welcome a trustworthy driverless car. Imagine being able to be dropped off where wanted and not have to go through the nause of finding a parking space as the car would do that itself. And a quick call to summon it back, with GPS telling the car your location. I could go on, but as far as I’m concerned, bring it on!!

but reducing road traffic accidents really doesn’t strike me as something I’d want to campaign against.

Did you see Shedmistress's post above - where the car's 'safety' features are determinedly trying to force her away from safe road positioning and into a crash with oncoming traffic?

I'm not saying that driverless cars are necessarily a bad thing - I can see huge benefits with them for many people. It would be absolutely amazing to think that a completely blind person could open a door on their drive, tell their car where they need to go and then step out at the other end.

However, I personally would like to see this remain as a choice for those who can otherwise safely drive themselves - not eventually potentially forcing people to surrender their driving licences, 'because they're human and humans can't be trusted'.

So everybody else has to put up with constant nagging because one unsuitable driver refuses to accept that he shouldn't do so? Have you raised this with him, or are you happy that he's 'satisfactorily terrible' at driving?

I wonder how the eye monitoring works if you are wearing very dark sunglasses or driving in the dark?

I wish it was only her husband!

@coolcoldfans can you tell me what car this is just so I can avoid it in future. FIL had a Polo then upgraded to a new Polo and it beeps at him constantly. It picks up a side road speed limit sign so tells him he is speeding when he absolutely isn't.

My car is a 23 plate and does "see" the speed limit but it is wrong on a stretch of intelligent motorway, it misses the signs occasionally. Mine also thinks I don't have my hands on the wheel when driving to a place I go every month because the road is poker straight so there is no slight deviation in the steering. I wish it detected pressure rather than wiggling the steering wheel. I often worry if I have an accident that the computer inside my car will say I didn't have my hands on the wheel. I need to remember to turn the setting off, it is lane assist.

It will probably also have negative assumptions baked in about the skill, integrity and competence of people who happen not to be white - these things usually do.

I'm still baffled as to why it monitors and evaluates what it thinks your mood is, based crudely on whether it thinks you're smiling enough - and why it even thinks it makes a difference to how well you will drive. It makes as much sense as putting a camera behind the photographer and confidently asserting that 100% of their customers are so cheese-daft that they can't stop talking about it.

I don’t think it does. BMW salesman told my brother that mirrored or dark glasses would mean it drive him batty.
I think my DH lacks lane discipline and even though I know perfectly well what the “distracted driver” sound is, I always ask him what the noise means when it goes off

It was nonsense, though. I have lane guidance on my car and while it nudges, it doesn’t “force” anything. If your car assists are forcing you it’s a sign you really do need to be a little more engaged with what you’re doing!