There’s been some suggestions about how there’s a big problem with the way driving is. You can be going up a road and then bam you crash into a car, or a 90 degree angle turn you didn’t see and suddenly you’ve crashed into the trees. There have been some suggestions to mitigate this, like the cruise control one, or making the turns on roads much more gradual, and both of them are reasonable.
Here’s an idea I had off the top of my head though, that I figured was a very Zomboid-esque way of handling the situation. When I first saw trailers for the game I was put off by the isometric perspective because like Third Person it felt a little unimpressive having a view of everything like that, and I thought seeing zombies behind me would be a little cheaty. But when I got in and found they used the fog of war (that’s what I think it’s called) I was impressed, they managed to retain the degree of realism in what your character could see without having to totally change everything by substituting it with another mechanic. I think doing that here may be beneficial. While you drive you have a very rough line map, kind of like the one you have in something like GTA except much less detailed, which shows you all the obstacles and turns you’d probably see within your character’s view. This map isn’t to be confused with an actual map like the ones you find ingame, but rather a rough one that gives a map depiction of what your character can see up ahead on the road and around them.
I think the other ideas suggested by other people on how to handle the problem tackled here also have their value and are certainly worth considering. But with that, let me know what you think.