The south of France where I write this from is particularly lovely this time of year. The rainy season (everything’s relative…) ends early May and makes room for an increasingly warming sun. Colors abound as the heat isn’t upon us yet and the ground isn’t dried out. Above all, the big tourist crowds are still a few weeks away, meaning restaurant terraces have free tables, the servers are still in a good mood, and even the food tends to be better than it will be mid-July.

Regular readers of this blog may remember that we bought a place down here last year which we’ve now renovated, managing to somehow coordinate everything to be ready for our first summer season. Our two kids are in the process of moving out so although a flat in southern France is certainly of interest, they don’t join us on every trip. The family however also includes a couple of four-legged members, which is why we usually drive down here from Zurich, a relatively easy six hours. That is, if you know when to leave and which roads to take.

For this, the 2019 BMW 540i Touring I use as my daily driver since late last year is pretty much a perfect car. It’s roomy enough, comfortable, quiet, and the straight-six, 340 hp engine is one of the sweetest ever made. Sure, I wouldn’t mind a bit more power, but realistically, it’s all you need (I just realized how old I must be getting, writing that). In good BMW tradition, I do believe though that the engine has a bit more than the quoted 340 hp, but it’s perhaps just an old man’s excuse. Anyway it’s also a fun car to drive for its category, and one always happy to switch from Comfort to Sport or Sport Plus and put those hp to the test.

To get here means a combination of straight but also much more turning roads, which suits the car really well. Once you’re here however, things change a bit. In southern France, contrary to more northern parts of Europe, a 5-series BMW is quite a big car, with everything being pretty much laid out for the smaller kind of vehicles you see all around you. Nowhere do you feel this more acutely than in parking garages. From the aggressive entry angles to very limited space in all directions, to say nothing of the very cramped parking spaces – it’s a thriller every time.

Every single visit could easily end with at least a scratched rim or a broken rear view mirror, without anyone really being to blame. If you look around you, it’s also quite easy to see that you’re not the only one with issues. No matter the size, finding a car in southern France without a few scratches is really next to impossible. Which makes you feel like quite the hero as long as you manage keeping your big, shiny station wagon in one piece.

Having gone through the exercise quite a few times now, what I’ve increasingly asked myself is whether the plethora of visual and acoustic warning systems modern cars are equipped with really help in any meaningful way, or if they’re rather a huge distraction. I should maybe add here that when buying the car, I deliberately chose the 2019 version such as to avoid the completely screen-based interior system of the latest model. What I didn’t realize was that in terms of safety systems, the 2019 seems to be very much on par with the newer car, meaning a bit too safe for my taste.

Don’t get me wrong – a reverse camera and the 360 degree version that most cars (except the high-tech company Tesla) have these days, are certainly useful. I also like the warning for crossing traffic when you back out of a spot. Thinking of it though, my wife’s Mini doesn’t have a rear camera, just the acoustic warning, which works absolutely fine. Also, her car only beeps when you reverse. That’s very different to the Beamer, that in a garage will literally beep the whole time.

You turn into your spot and you’re close to cars on both sides. The beeping starts, along with fancy camera images on the infotainment screen that I’m still not really sure what they show – and after all, when you park you’re usually aware of other cars around you. As you get further in the front will start beping as well, and if you then go into reverse to straighten your position, the cross-traffic sensor will start warning you. By now, that relatively easy parking doesn’t feel easy at all anymore.

As if this wasn’t enough, BMW (and I’m sure, others as well) have added an additional safety measure called emergency braking. When the car senses a danger, which in the described garage situation is the whole time, it sometimes just brakes on its own until a complete stop. The firs few times this happened, I was convinced I had hit something and slowly started to doubt my driving ability. On one occasion, it did actually help not hitting a small post I hadn’t seen. But as I’ve discovered, the system is far from perfect so that most times, it just brakes without reason. In these situations, the idea that we’ll have self-driving cars anytime soon feels really far away…

In the end, I just do what most test drivers tend to do when they get a new car – I turn off what can be turned off. For some things, you can change the settings such as to avoid them coming back on next time you turn on the engine. For others, you need to go through the exercise every time. Just like you need to change your drive mode every time you start up the car, if your preferred drive mode is something else than Comfort. It beats me why this is desirable.

To come back to the French garages, it’s only a question of time until my luck ends, or the sounds give me a nervous breakdown. In an effort to avoid both, my better half (who is even less a fan of driving the Beamer down here than me) and I have agreed to buy a small car for our local driving, also for the times we may fly down. Given I’m not going to spend a big budget here, we’re talking something well used, more than a few years old, very basic, without any kind of driving helps. Painted bumpers is also something to avoid. Ideally it’ll already have a couple of scratches and the kind of rear view mirrors you buy for a few Euros at your next warehouse.

I actually really look forward to this, and I have a pretty good idea of what I’m after and also where to find it, so stay tuned. Even though the BMW can’t figure out when to emergency brake or not, it’s probably just a matter of time before our driving becomes increasingly automatized. Therefore, while we still remember how to drive and are agile enough to turn our heads when we reverse into a parking spot, let’s enjoy it!