Nissan designers seek to appeal to aging Japan

This is so typical of Japan, where every last thing is aimed at the diminishing youth culture, and fakery regarding images of elderly (such as the many costumed "elderly" on TV commercials & print ads) is rampant. Why doesn't Nissan just hire some real people over 65-70, even as temps, to participate in the design & testing? I'm sure many would be happy to work. Unless the younger designers here donning these special suits go home and talk with elder folks, like family members even, and get their input, the new designs risk not fulfilling their intended purposes. Even if wearing the special suits, the designs are still coming from people who have never themselves been over 65.

I'm more worried about the bad driving by the elderly than realistic images. Anybody with blurry vision should either get their vision straightened out, or not not be driving. period.

And the braking issues where elderly tend to step on the accelerator by mistake seems to me to be an unfixable problem. The only way around it is to have the cars drive themselves. Not too far fetched, it seems with all the sensor and Navi technology available today.

At the root of the problem is the pride of some elderly. Many realize that they need help and seek it out, taking advantage of pick-up/drop-off services, but still many see driving as a sign of their independence. sometimes at the expense of people's lives.

i can certainly understand nissan wanting to tailor its products to an ageing demographic, but i think it's high time the government stepped in and started clamping down on over-age drivers drivers for the sake of safety on the roads. i hope it happens soon. so i agree with sydeham, but i worry that there's a certain arrogance in the elderly which with exacerbate the problem

escape_artist, I take it you probably never took part in any sort of product development? Unfortunately most end users don't know what they want and won't be capable of coming up with what they want. The hard part is actually coming up with these innovative redesigns which normal people who don't have the necessary background won't be able to come up with. With that said I'm sure the product is test piloted with some old folks (err I mean the target user) before its actually put to production... Nissan can't be that dumb.

Even at 78+ yrs of age & never involved in an automotive accident PLUS riding not only m/cs, but sportbikes since 1946. I still drive a Subaur 'Forester' with preferred manual shifting though I HATE the electrical crap like moving the side windows or side mirrors for I like that to be manual to so much more LIKE trying to see the Speedometer with BLACK background & white lettering is the very opposit of what we read. Be facing the sun & you cannot judge the speed for the tack is the same screwed up colours & besides who understands or or uses a Tach on a car?

So we can expect a GTR for geriatrics?

I thought the bus system in Japan is design for the elders of Japan, for they should not be driving anymore.. their reflexes must be slow then.

Smythe: I'm an expert in the industry. You'ved said it in a nutshell. People tend to mistake Design for Style. And some folks here are actually wondering why bother doing research at all... I once recommended that a major auto maker in western Japan repalce all dial and gauge faces with boat instrument faces. Familiar with them? The company almost did it but balked at the last minute. And they regretted all the way from the bank when disaster struck a month after the new model had debuted. 2000 customers (all over 50) returned their cars. Driving into the sun they couldn't make out a single dial face. In poor light the red digital icons seemed to multiply. In short sir the car was a right royal flop. The design engineers came sprinting to my desk asking for a quick but permanent fix. The bucket seat they'd blasted as unnecessary for the over 55 drivers was retro-actively installed into every vehicle. Apparantly what I had known from Florida research was that bucket seats offered the best driving support for aging drivers with back troubles. I really hope that the manufacturers will start to rethink the reason why they build cars. Please continue to enjoy your driving and riding.

Mittsu "So we can expect a GTR for geriatrics?"

Yes, it's called the R35 GTR. "Anyone, any place" sound familiar?