By EWAN KENNEDY
27 November 2006

I drove a remote control BMW the other day. Simply pushed the correct buttons and watched it neatly slot itself into a tight parking space inside a garage.

But unlike the many other remote control cars I've driven in the past, this wasn’t a mini monster truck with a screaming electric motor – it was a full sized Bimmer. That’s right, a genuine BMW 750i road car, close to a quarter of a million dollars of road-going luxury saloon.

Not on sale yet, because final engineering tests have still to be carried out for full approval of the car, the remote controlled BMW is aimed at the person who has a big car and a small garage.

Rather than driving the car into a too-skinny spot then squeezing out of doors that can only open a small amount, you simply stop the car in the vicinity of the garage and let it do the rest itself. You hold down a button, the engine starts, the mirrors fold out of the way and the car steers into the parking spot, positions itself dead centre then stops just short of the back wall. Before switching itself off and locking the doors.

The next morning you simply push the button again and the car reverses itself out again, ready for the next trip. Not only a great way to make life simpler, but a party trick that will keep mates and neighbours amused for days to come.

The self-parking system uses a small video camera mounted out of sight in front of the interior mirror. A reflector has to be placed in the correct position inside the garage, generally in a central location on the back wall. A computer uses signals from that reflector to steer and position the car exactly as initially requested by the driver.

We also had a preview of an interesting new BMW safety feature that stops a dozy driver from having their car leave the road or wander into the wrong traffic lane. If the car gets too close to a lane line or a white line at the edge of the road the steering wheel shudders. It’s a lot like the feel you get from the steering when the car runs over one of those ribbed strips at the side of the road.

Except that the BMW system cleverly kicks in a few centimetres before the tyres actually reach the white lines giving the driver extra warning that they are possibly drifting into danger due to their inattention.

I’m already on record for saying I have concerns about drivers treating this sort of electronic aid as a reason for letting their attention wander when they should be concentrating on paying attention to the road.

By all means have something like this as a backup should the driver be distracted by something else happening in the general traffic flow, but let's not have driver checking text messages or dialing mobile phone numbers while relying on the car to watch the road for them.