Remember hand-crank windows and road maps? Young drivers probably don't

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Not long ago, I gave a ride to a kid in an old car with no air conditioning. It was a warm day, so I told him to roll down the window.

He had no idea what that meant. Having grown up with power windows, he had never seen a crank handle and didn't know how to use one.

It got me thinking about all the things today's kids take for granted that either didn't exist or were far less common when their parents were growing up. Here are five ways in which kids experience cars differently, starting with those windows.

Windows and doors
You can still find crank handles on old cars and "very, very low-end cars," according to Art Jacobsen, automotive industry veteran and director of business development for CarMD.com. But on most vehicles, power windows are a standard feature.

"Manufacturers found it was cheaper in the long run to eliminate the hand-crank window option and make all their cars with electric windows," says Jeff Bennett, an associate professor at Northwood University in Midland, Mich., who has written textbooks for the automotive industry.

Another thing that's increasingly rare: manual locks. Locking each door separately seems like a lot of work compared with one click from the keychain.

Music and games
"Most cars now have an audio jack, where you can plug in an iPod or any other MP3 player and play it over the car stereo," says Jacobsen.

For kids, DVD players and video games have replaced 20 Questions and license-plate math. Other entertainment options include satellite radio and even satellite TV. Bennett says it all adds up to a huge shift in the way families travel.

"It's not so much that your car has no more crank-down windows that's the big difference," he says. "It's that Charlie and Millie are in the back seat watching something and not talking to Mom and Dad -- ever."

Directions
Getting lost -- and arguments about being lost -- is probably something your kids experience far less often than you did growing up, thanks to GPS technology. Some folks get turn-by-turn directions and traffic updates from their cellphones; some have portable GPS devices; and some spring for a navigational system built right into the dashboard of their vehicle.

Car seats
Remember riding shotgun when you were a kid, or sitting on a grownup's lap? Both are forbidden now, thanks to rules and recommendations on child safety.

All 50 states require the use of car seats for children, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recommends that children under 13 always sit in back. Not only can front-seat air bags injure small passengers, but back-seat passengers are less likely to be hurt in head-on collisions.

The rules have had a dramatic impact on safety. Although car accidents remain the leading cause of death for kids ages 3-14, the number of auto-related fatalities among children under 13 has dropped to 1,045 in 2008 from 3,643 in 1975, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Repairs
Generations of 20th century kids grew up working on the family car with their fathers. No more, says Jacobsen.

"It's not by accident that manufacturers have designed these computer systems," he says. "You have to bring the car to them to get even simple things done. Everything is computerized, and it's very difficult without access to the proper tools and information."

On the other hand, Bennett says, "cars are so much more reliable and so much safer, and so much less maintenance is required. The average individual is much better off today."