This new car I’m test-driving boasts all the latest bells and whistles – or, rather, beeps and bings. Peer sideways for too long checking traffic and the car emits an irritating sound. Should I take a hand off the wheel to scratch an ear, I’m admonished with a strident beep.

When the car determines it’s too near a white line, it tugs the wheel against my hands and brakes as a car slows ahead. Its haptic “buttons” feel like fingers pressing back – as if an invisible presence has its hands and feet on the controls: a ghost in the machine I’m inside.

Heading back to the caryard, a cryptic tone sounds. From the back seat, salesman Anthony says it’s the over-speed warning. We’re still on the 40km/h service road but the car “saw” the yard’s 5km/h speed-limit sign. Anthony advises disabling it on start-up. “Most people leave it on, though,” he says. “Saves you getting done for speeding.”

But Anthony has turned off the car’s fatigue-warning feature. The car doesn’t “know” me yet, so won’t detect if I’m tired anyway. “It doesn’t like sunglasses, either,” he says. I’ve read about some systems that are so crudely calibrated they’ll insistently demand you take a break by confusing energetic driving on a twisting mountain road with drunkenness or debility. Others declare you unfit to drive if you’ve had a cold or a rough night. You’ve already seen yourself in the bathroom mirror. Who needs a robot to rub it in?

I last faced this kind of surveillance and intervention 50 years ago, seated beside a human driving instructor with dual controls overriding my own. I’m an experienced motorist, but in this new car I feel patronised. Between the white lines, human.

In this robot-on-wheels I’m no longer autonomous. And isn’t that supposed to be the inherent promise of the automobile? It used to be. But with freedom came much higher risk.

Fifty years ago, cars were certainly more dangerous. Few 1970s cars had secondary safety features such as crumple zones, fewer still had primary (or active) safety aids such as lane-departure warning and autonomous braking. As driver, you were more or less in control of the car. There was no e-nanny on board to mitigate distraction or errancy. The result was an Australian road death-rate in 1975 of 26.6 deaths per 100,000 people.

Today’s more crowded, complex and chaotic road network is paradoxically much safer, with an equivalent fatality rate in 2026 of 4.7. Mounting evidence suggests advanced driver-assistance systems (Adas) are one reason for this improvement.

Monash University’s Accident Research Centre has identified distraction and drowsiness contributing to about 40% of crashes resulting in hospital visits in Victoria. Associate professor Michael Fitzharris estimates that the introduction of Adas, including autonomous emergency braking (AEB), to Victoria’s passenger and light commercial fleet could prevent 40,000 serious traffic injuries over 30 years. “The findings make a compelling case for the rapid adoption of driver monitoring technology,” Fitzharris says.

The federal government’s response has been to mandate lane-keeping assist technology and AEB on all passenger vehicles imported into Australia from 1 March 2029. (Ludicrously, the largest American monster utes are exempt.)

But research and customer feedback have also identified problems with existing driver-assistance systems, including autonomous braking.

I had cause to be sceptical about AEB in 2022 after renting a new four-wheel drive in central Australia.

I was passing a slow vehicle turning right when my car suddenly braked hard on a bend, skidding in gravel towards a deep culvert. A moment later it computed there had been no danger anyway, and released control back to me. I’d been briefly overruled by a machine, and could have been killed. After stopping to deactivate the active cruise control, I, human, was back in charge.

The Australasian New Car Assessment Program (Ancap) has identified deficiencies with Adas, and in March announced new design protocols for driver-interface technology for the next three years.

In cooperation with the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro Ncap), Ancap will now penalise vehicles with intrusive, confusing or poorly calibrated safety systems.

Ancap will also recommend the return of physical buttons or fixed areas on screens for key controls: horn, indicators, hazard lights, wipers and headlights. These changes acknowledge the danger of searching through complex screen menus while driving, and the absurdity of tech meant to reduce driver distraction but actually increasing it.

Acknowledging criticism surrounding increasingly intrusive driver assistance technologies, Ancap’s chief executive, Carla Hoorweg, says the organisation’s updated guidance states that well-designed driver monitoring systems should support motorists, “not irritate them”.

“Driver monitoring systems must demonstrate genuine capability to detect distraction and fatigue, and speed assistance systems must demonstrate both accuracy and meaningful driver engagement,” Hoorweg says.

Such measures should encourage the evolution of today’s relatively crude interface platforms into sophisticated systems, including AI assistants more adept at relating to our species, and produce more self-driving, and potentially safer, cars. But could this advancing safety tech also create more bad drivers?

Automotive engineers go to great lengths to isolate occupants from the road by reducing a vehicle’s NVH (noise, vibration and harshness). Most drivers value such designed detachment, along with electronic driver aids – particularly as commuting times increase and cars are increasingly used as mobile offices, infotainment platforms or salons (I recently saw a driver stopped at lights shaving his lathered head).

But tech that caters to these social changes can, in effect, discourage active, attentive driving, and accommodate or even abet distraction. Doubts also persist about whether cosseted motorists will retain the skill levels of their unassisted peers.

In a 2026 study, using a sample of 60 Australian drivers, researchers at the University of Delft concluded that use of Adas leads to the degradation of manual driving skills, with drivers showing increased risk-taking and decreased cognitive and physical engagement. The study also found that warning systems triggered varied adaptations, including dependence, warning fatigue and risk compensation, as drivers relied more on the car to drive for them.

Acknowledging this potential, learner-driver Wil’s father disables his car’s Adas when teaching his son to drive. Wil, 29, says his father is concerned that relying too heavily on tech, at least initially, could result in his son becoming complacent. Wil is proud of being able to drive without Adas, and to be developing the awareness skills required to see the crucial “big picture” himself.

Other new drivers, like 27-year-old Stephanie and her sister, prefer to leave their cars’ aids on. The siblings both learned to drive with Adas activated. Stephanie says lane-keeping assist helps her determine her car’s exterior dimensions and position it accurately. Another beginner driver, Sawyer, says she likes her car’s electronic aids: “Because they make me feel safe.”

A clear generational divide is emerging as younger generations embrace the spread of digital culture – in this case, to the road – more readily than older drivers (like me).

While accepting the raw safety statistics, I remain sceptical about the rise of robot cars. Who, after all, should we trust behind the wheel? Anonymous organic entities – our own species – or invisible electronic minders?

Though driver-assistance features, including active autonomous braking, can still be deactivated in many cars, it’s telling that one brand calls its manual setting “classic cruise”. Soon it may be “legacy cruise”, and only if a “no thanks” option remains at all.

So I won’t be buying a new car yet. My decade-old vehicle has only two electronic aids, which I always leave on: tyre-pressure alert and blind-spot-monitoring (a boon for this old neck).

For any future purchase, I’ll favour a car with minimal electronic intrusion, that allows disabling or at least muting, and with individual settings for multiple drivers that don’t need re-configuring at each start-up.

Until then, I remain autonomously yours, a human at the wheel. And yes, you can trust me. I promise not to shave my head while driving.