See how long it lasts even if it's your car – ostensibly – because you paid for it.

But it isn't really yours. Not in the most meaningful sense. At least not if it's a new car. Here's one example (of many) that will back up the assertion:

A couple of weeks ago, I was test driving a 2025 VW Jetta GLI – which is a great car, by the way, because it is one of just two or three new sedans you can buy that comes standard with a manual transmission. You can read more about that here. But what I wanted to tell you about is what happened on the last day I was driving the Jetta. To change stations on the FM dial, it is necessary to touch the screen – because the VW like all new cars has a touchscreen interface to control such things as the station/channel you're listening to.

So I touched it to change it, because I wanted to listen to something else. But the car wouldn't let me.

It temporarily disabled the touchscreen controls – for "my safety," it said. So much for "my" car.

Granted, it wasn't – in that the Jetta was VW's car and I was just driving it. But that misses the point, which is that anyone who drives it will be similarly controlled. Including whoever ends up owning the Jetta once it is sold after its press car days are over.

The car – and it is not just this car – is programmed to control what the driver is permitted to do. That means it is not under the control of whoever putatively owns the thing.

Do you own the bus you're riding in?

Here is another example. I am currently driving a 2025 Volvo XC60 and it has a touchscreen also – one that can operate as a TV. You can watch a movie in this car if you like, via Amazon Prime. But only if the car is not moving. As soon as you move the little crystal toggle thingie from electrically engaged Park to electrically engaged Drive, the computer that controls the car shuts off the streaming movie.

Once again, for your "safety."

Am I the only one irritated by this sort of thing?

It is effronterous enough that the government is endlessly parenting us – for our "safety" – as if we were perpetual children in need of such parenting. As if we were not capable – most of us – of weighing risks and making judicious decisions for ourselves. It is enough – says the government – that there are adult children out there (and not very bright ones) that do need to be parented all through life to justify parenting the rest of us, as if we were also not-very-bright children incapable of making sound decisions ourselves.