How can a car so small cause so much grief? Photo: Hayley Nicholls.
On a recent holiday with a friend to French Polynesia, we hired a little Suzuki Jimny, circa 2018.
For reference, I drive a 2024 Kia Sorento when at home. That was a significant departure from the bells and whistles I’ve grown accustomed to.
It also meant returning to a manual gearbox after 20-plus years of automatics. Also, I’d be operating the gearbox from the opposite side of the car. And the road.
No worries! I thought. It’ll come back to me.
Were there more sensible and more automated options available? Yes. But we opted for this iconic cutie for the vibes. We named her ‘Tahitia’. She had three doors, five speeds, a 1.5-litre engine and a seemingly unending ability to stress me out.
Because, as it turns out, driving a car is not like riding a bike.
Too much has changed. Modern cars have evolved into supercomputers on wheels with spaceship dashboards, thousands of sensors and paternalistic controls like lane assist and automatic braking.
Pulling out of the Avis parking lot, we were full of joi de vivre as we screamed around the island. Literally screaming with our mouths, you understand, because it was unexpectedly horrifying to drive on the right (read: wrong) side of the road.
Arriving at our accommodation, I was forced to attempt my first hill start as a born-again manual driver.
I did this while reversing into oncoming traffic as a distressed Francophone yelled at me. With each failed attempt, our little hire car inched closer and closer to flattening the surrounding fauna, and I watched my security deposit slip further from view. Eventually I found the car’s secret sweet spot between clutch and accelerator pressure and unlocked its ability to MOVE IN MY DESIRED DIRECTION!
Folks, it was at this moment I realised: There would be some worries.
From carefree cruising and feeling like a travel influencer to suddenly stalling with all the grace and vulnerability of an upturned turtle – in 0.5 seconds. Driving this Barbie jeep was a humbling experience. Photo: Hayley Nicholls.
Any skill I once possessed in mastering the art of revs had atrophied.
And is there anything more embarrassing than stalling a car? Nothing takes the wind out of your sails quite like it. With every stall, I went from Tropical Island Barbie to an upturned turtle until my ego shrank enough to fit appropriately in our pint-sized vehicle.
At one point, I turned the key enthusiastically (no ‘start’ buttons here) and another long-forgotten frustration resurfaced: the steering wheel lock. Never have I been so irrationally offended by an inanimate object.
Tahitia! Talk to me! What have I done? What do you WANT?
At this point, I effectively engaged in a physical fight with the car – twisting, pulling and pushing things at random.
Solving this puzzle ultimately cost us $50 in data roaming – and our pride.
But the most confronting discovery was just how much knowledge and skill I’d forgotten – or outsourced to my car – over the years.
As someone who generally bemoans the condescending, controlling nature of “smart” cars, I was surprised to find how reliant I’d become on their warnings and watchful eyes. I’ve become accustomed to being told when something is behind me, and resting in the knowledge that the car won’t actually let me hit it. Without reversing cameras or automatic braking, I felt incredibly vulnerable. Judging distance for myself suddenly felt like guesswork and totally irresponsible.
Forget swimming with reef sharks, carparks became the adrenaline rush of the trip.
So, are “smart” cars making us stupid drivers?
On a recent tour of a tertiary education institution, I learnt that students used to bring their own cars in to work on in their mechanics workshop, but are doing less and less as cars have become “too complicated” and “too specialist”. More computer than car.
Are the days of tinkering over? Is car maintenance soon to require an IT degree?
And for us drivers, has driving become a passive experience? Just another example of how technology – disguised as something helpful and beneficial – actually dumbs us down and turns activity into sedentarism.
Converting active pursuits into passive experiences, tech continues to simplify how we communicate, consume content and navigate the world.
For one nostalgic week, it was refreshing to feel like the driver, rather than a passenger in the driver’s seat.
That said, I stalled in traffic, got stranded on the roadside, and almost flattened an innocent Hibiscus.
Maybe Tahitia should have been driving.
