Some vehicles are like that. I'm having a hard time accepting that my mother's van, and my puckup aren't long for this world, both being around twenty years old, and in less than good condition (but that's a different story).

This truck still runs like new, but I've grown attached to it in a sense, and now that I have to drive a different truck, it's a bit saddening. Plus this truck is purely mechanical, which is something I value quite highly in a machine

I know the feeling

Yeah, I know what you mean, like I just posted in your shout box I'm looking to get into trucking here in the states, but the newer trucks that they use have a lot of computer gadgetry in them; I'm one for older vehicles so I'm not sure how that'll work out. The thing I like about vehicles that are completely mechanical is that anyone with basic knowledge, and repair or maintence skills can keep them running, which is why both the truck and the van that I mentioned earlier are still running on mostly original equipment, they're just kind of falling apart.

Yeah, I hate computers in vehicles. It upsets me that we're becoming so reliant on them to do such simple tasks, such as parallel parking, but that's a bit off-topic. I'm not sure of your laws there, but here, we (drivers) are not allowed to service any part of the truck, regardless of whatever you may know about it, which really sucks. The only thing we're allowed to adjust is the manual slack adjusters for the brakes, but only if certified to do so.

I'm not too sure either but I have seen on more than one occasion a truck down the street from where my parrents live thats guts were strewn out on the driveway, might have been a privately owned truck, but I don't know. Lot of rules and regs to truck driving so it really wouldn't surprise me if we can't work on trucks down here either to tell you the honest truth.

Parallel parking isn't really off topic if it's just an example, but you are right people are way to reliant on computers for things that they should be more than capable of doing themselves. My real hang up about computers in vehicles is that even if it's something that you could fix with a broken tooth pick and a lenght of piano wire ( ) you'd have to take it to a shop to find out what's wrong which can cost more than the fix itself.

Yeah, I think we've made a simple machine WAY too complicated. There's talk of a car that drives itself in the near future. I'm not sure about everyone else, but I'd never completely trust my life to a machine that I had no control over. It seems to be following the trend though. It's annoying when someone can't drive their car cause they don't have to :/

Yeah, I've heard of that, supposedly it's going to be available in the next twenty or thirty years. I'm in agreement with you I couldn't own something like that, I prefer to trust my own actions rather than that of an inanimate object. I'll agree that it's annoying, and it'll be even more so when, or if, that kind of vehicle comes out because there'll be even more people who can't drive on the road, and there's too many of that kind of person out there already.

Ah, too true :/

As a sidenote, we should make manual transmissions obsolete so that we can talk on the phone and text all of our friends while driving, right? lol fail

Way too true!! I've lost count of how many times I've almost been hit by texting drivers and people talking on their cell phones, (granted I talk on my cell phone now and then, but I learned how to drive with on hand so I'm not near as bad as most people). What's worse (and this is among the many problems I have with cops) is that the police here text and talk on their cell phones, while dicking around on their laptop computers, and talking on the radio with dispatch, all while providing an example of "safe" driving.

What the hell happened to the time when people were actually concerned with the lives of the other people on the road? The computer age arrived, that's what...