They have to protect you from your own stupidity. AFAIK it started with the Dodge "joystick" shifter where a few unfortunate people got crushed/killed when they got out of the car with it running, mistakenly not in park. The eventual fix was to electronically force the shifter to park when the car is turned off or when the driver's door is opened. The wife drives a 2014 Charger with the joystick shifter; I have hated it with a passion since day one.

 

I see their point of what they wish to accomplish this, with a few manufacturers doing it apparently.

Similar to push button start -it is different and the habits we've formed are broken.
The dial shifter things I can see, but a column or console shift seems to be normal action any driver has done for a long time.

The shift interlock was invented to prevent the console shifter from being accidentally shifted, like when the 4 year old kicks it. Or when Junior is pretending to be dad, driving and shift the vehicle out of park and vehicle rolls away.

I disagree with the option, and it is something that maybe should be offered as a luxury item for those who wish to have it. It SHOULD definitely be something that is disabled from the menus, like the stupid rain sensing wipers. I'd have to get out and walk if the vehicle rain sensing wipers were the only thing offered since it's not even close to a good design.

I don't care about the money part of it. I mean I do, but I can't honestly say "tech is stupid and costs too much" because this is no different than many years ago when when tech started.
A flip phone works perfect but people want a cell phone in their pocket that is more powerful than many peoples home PC's. We can't be a hypocrite and say technology is only good in the one example I think it's good to have.

 

I figure it protects me from less conscientious drivers who may not remember to put it in park. A pretty small inconvenience to prevent death and injuries.
Especially with the auto hold feature and auto start/stop, it can appear that the truck is in park when it's really not.
Driver can be sitting in the truck, no foot on the brake, engine is off, and think that it's in park. When you open that door and the truck shifts itself to park it could really save lives. For example, I pull up to my garage door and come to a full stop while I wait for the door to open. Say my kid comes to say hello, and I open the door. I think it's pretty great that the truck shifts itself into park instead of rolling forward.
Surprisingly there are a ton of times when people have injured themselves at drive-thrus when they drop their change and forget to put the car into park before getting out. A guy was killed recently. And then whatever car they're driving rolls out into traffic.

 

I agree there should at least be an easy way to disable this feature. I wonder what will happen in a few years when these vehicles start seeing some age, and things like door position switches start wearing out... Will these vehicles start shifting into Park while driving down the highway?

Kind of reminds me of the movie 'Maximum Overdrive' I watched as a kid. Of course back then it was nothing more than a low budget horror flick based on writings by a coked-up Stephen King, so not to be taken seriously. But maybe there was a little more reality in that movie than I realized at the time!

 

Yeah, I guess that makes some sense with the auto/start stop. Think I'm gonna miss my "analog" 2012. Lol
Still, can someone try and put it back in gear and see if that will override it?

 

It blew my mind the first time it happened to me! It's funny though, because for the life of me I couldn't get my truck to do it every time I want to show the new trick to my wife. Then when we traded it in I was bs-ing with the sales guy and mentioned it being intermittent and he said that if you have your seat belt on it wont do it and if you do it with the door already open.

 

You can maybe blame the rotary shifter for this. Chrysler had some people get killed by there own vehicles not putting them in park. For me personally we had two Ram trucks at work with rotary shifters mounted on the dash, my wife’s Chrysler 300c has the rotary shifter on the console. For what ever reason when backing the Ram trucks up, I would on occasion turn the **** the wrong way into drive from reverse instead of park. If you then tried to get out, it would slam it into park for you. With the 300c with the **** on the console I’m less likely to do that but I’ve seen my wife do it though.

So the rotary shifter is a bad idea and Ford and others use it also. It has nothing to do with column shifters but for safety reasons they did it for them also. Kind of similar reasons you have to have your foot on the brake to put it in drive, that one is on Audi.

 

Ram owners use a "seat belt extender" to clip into the seat belt so they can reverse the truck with the door open. Ram has had this "feature" for a few years now. Not sure what Ford has set up to enable this feature or how to get around it, but I am sure that someone will figure out a way sooner or later.

 

Here's an example of why we all need this:
​​​​​https://www.reddit.com/r/IdiotsInCars/comments/pvra13/i_cant_believe_that_this_is_even_possible/

 

Looks like a Darwin award nominee to me. I've been driving for 46 years and have never accidentally left a car in gear or neutral. The Nanny state must protect us from ourselves...