Distracted driver: BMW 530D M Sport car review

Does this BMW take the electronic nannying too far?

The BMW 530D M Sport: it may put you in a bad mood, but it won’t crash into anything.

If a piece of technology remains fundamentally unchanged for more than a century, it’s inevitable that one day it will be as perfect as it’s going to get. So it is with the most recent BMW 530d.

Every lesson since Karl Benz took his invention for a spin in 1888 has been incorporated. And as a result, the world arrived at what might fairly be described as “peak car”.

That thing offers an incredible blend of economy, refinement and power. It’s comfortable, handles beautifully, is well made, easy to use and its good looks are tainted only by a deserved familiarity.

If I’d been in charge at BMW when that car was launched, I’d have asked everyone in the research and development department to go on holiday for ever as their work was done. The car, as an entity, had been perfected.

However, the world doesn’t work like that. The world demands change. So BMW was forced to come up with a new model that would, somehow, have to be even better. To try to achieve this, in a car that’s still propelled down the road by the age-old principle of suck, squeeze, bang and blow, BMW turned to its laptop department, instructing it to fit the new model with all the whizz bangs invented since the last model was on the drawing board. Sounds good, yes?

But perhaps it isn’t. Many new cars – even my Golf – are capable of reading the road ahead and, for a few seconds, steering themselves. That’s great, unless you want to change lanes on the motorway. If you indicate first, then the system knows you’re doing it on purpose and shuts down, but if you don’t, and frankly there’s little point if traffic is light and you’re moving into the middle lane to overtake a truck, then the system tries to stop you. In some cars, you get a gentle tug at the wheel, but in the 5-series, you get a wrench. And then you end up fighting your own car, which is undignified and annoying.

Turning this facility off means plunging into the car’s computer, which means you need to take your eyes off the road all the way from London to Swindon. But eventually you find the right sub menu and then you’re free to change lanes without letting the car know first.

But this puts it in a bad mood, so when you cross the white lines, it shudders and shakes, and to do something about this, you have to go back into the menus, which is dangerous because now the car won’t steer itself while you’re otherwise engaged.

Mind you, it also won’t crash into anything. Sensors are on hand to prevent you from getting within about 400 metres of the car in front, and if you break the speed limit, you are reminded on both the heads-up display and the speedometer that you are on the wrong side of the law.

It’s weird. You are driving along, with the engine ticking over at about 1500rpm. You are well within the capabilities of the car and you are a sentient being. But the electronic systems are behaving like you’re armed with a machinegun and you’ve just entered a shopping centre with a murderous look.

It takes a while to turn all this stuff off and then you are left with a car that feels pretty much identical to the old 530d.

Which raises an interesting point. It’s a far nicer and more relaxing car to drive with all the electronic nannies turned off, but what if I were briefly distracted? And the car crashed. And killed someone.

It’s a moral maze. Do you put up with the constant interference and nagging just in case? Or do you disconnect everything and have a nicer time while hoping for the best? And does having the choice make it a better car than its predecessor?

Or is it morally reckless to turn off all the systems that could save a child’s life? Surely, you should leave them on. In which case, why would you need a car that handles so sweetly and can do 250km/h? When you think about it for a while, your head starts to hurt.

Of course, if more people buy a car like this – a car that forces you to indicate, and obey the speed limits and not tailgate; well, that has to mean fewer fatalities.

So this is a car that hasn’t moved the car itself along one jot. But it has raised the bar nevertheless because it’s something you buy for the benefit of other people. That’s an idea that’s never really been tried before.

FAST FACTS BMW 530D M SPORT

ENGINE: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbodiesel (190kW/540Nm)

AVERAGE FUEL: 4.7 litres per 100km

TRANSMISSION: Eight-speed automatic, rear-wheel drive

PRICE: $119,900

RATING: 4 stars