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J.C.
Milliman
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Auto safety devices: Let
Darwinism roll!
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Let's get one thing clear -- when I mention bad drivers later on, I'm not talking about you. Neither am I talking about myself. For the sake of my ensuing discussion, we'll just accept that we're both good drivers and not part of the problem.
Now, with that settled, let's press on.
I read recently of the new safety devices debuted by Mercedes and Lexus. Chief among them is an "adaptive cruise control" that uses radar, linked to the onboard computer, to set the distance between the vehicle and another ahead of it in the same lane. With "safety" gizmos like these doing our thinking for us (can you tell where I'm going?), "Driving becomes more relaxing, safer and less stressful," claims Mike Schamberger, president and CEO of Automotive Distance Control Systems GmBh - the designer of the Mercedes cruise control.
Ja.
Other devices from similar hi-tech firms promise vehicles with video systems, tied into the car's HAL9000 computer of course, that scan traffic to manage the cruise control (and even tap the brakes when required) and read lane markers to alert us when we drift out of our lane.
There's more, but quite frankly, I'm scared to tell you about it. Instead of making the roadways safer, these devices will make them exponentially more dangerous. If you've been out on the Capitol Beltway (here in the Nation's Capitol) in the past 20 years you know that most drivers stink (except for you and I, of course). And as cars become more prolific and easier to operate, peoples' collective ability to operate a car proficiently plummets like Evil Kneivel missing the far side of the Snake River Canyon.
I drive a truck on a regular basis (a real truck with more than six wheels, not a foofy grocery-totin' yuppie wagon with four-wheel drive and a tonneau cover) and I have to respond to the stupid things four wheelers do. From the lofty perch afforded by my trusty IH 1800's driver's seat, I also get a pretty good view of what those morons are doing.
Would you believe some of 'em are reading the newspaper … while driving? No kidding, I saw it yesterday.
Am I the only person outraged by this???
These people don't need devices to make driving easier. They don't need it to be more relaxing - they're far too relaxed already! If TV and radio news is any gauge, I'd say most folks today have attention spans akin to a gnat's and what they don't need is any thingamabob to let their already meager attention span wander even more while operating a motor vehicle. They need to be focused, not relaxed!
I remember Dad telling me about how, in his day (when a Hoover was a president, not a vacuum cleaner), truck drivers were highly respected professionals. Today, sadly enough, they're not. I also remember how Dad got me to focus when I "wandered" from the laws of the land. Pain brings focus, especially the pain of having the rod of correction applied to the seat of knowledge.
What happened? Well think about it - 60 years ago, a big rig was a formidable affair. Some had two or three transmissions with a grove of shift levers to contend with, not to mention two-speed rear axles, trailer brake controllers and a plethora of oil, air and vacuum pressure gauges that made truck cabs look like nuclear power station control rooms.
Talk about "crew workload," a truck driver had to fight a couple of Roadranger, over/under or Brownie box levers (one for each hand), a rear axle and a clutch requiring thighs like redwoods just to shift a gear - not an enterprise to be lightly entered into. Steering wheel? I think you were supposed to hold it with your knees.
You either became good at multi-tasking or you proved Darwinism. And in becoming good, you necessarily learned to anticipate, scan and drive proactively -- skills all sadly (and dangerously) missing from most roadways today.
Then what happened? Simple - the automatic transmission. When trucks got easier to operate, drivers could relax a little. Bad move. The same dynamic developed with automobiles. Ever drive a Model T? You ought to some time. But you'd better be fairly ambidextrous as the Model T has a planetary transmission requiring each foot perform a different task. Both hands are similarly occupied.
I submit that when cars were harder to operate, drivers were better. You learned to shift well or you learned to rebuild transmissions. Mechanical brakes made you anticipate sudden stops or you died. Non-power steering made you learn how to steer or you lost control and died. There were no cellphones so you had to be organized or you died because the car ran off the road an into a tree while you were fumbling around. And the lack of GPS made you learn where you were going, and pay attention to the road, or you got lost in the wrong part of town and died at the hands of an angry mob.
It was so simple -- you mastered the art of driving or you died. Social Darwinism at its finest. The pain of dying (or threat thereof) kept drivers focused on what they were doing. The only computers in the cars of yore were the ones between the drivers' ears -- and they had better be good at handling the myriad reflexes needed to keep low-tech behemoths on marginal roads.
Cars today do most of this for us. First we let automatic transmissions do our shifting for us. Then, we abrogated our right to the accelerator to the "Cruise Control" and fuel injection. Now we are talking about surrendering the only attribute separating us from the rocks we crush for macadam, our ability to think, to some HAL-like artificial "intelligence" operating our cars.
My goodness, where will it end? Thus, shrinking from their duty to be responsible, and good, drivers, most people today need cars harder to drive, not easier.
To heck with that, I say! Keep 'em focused or let Mr. Darwin weed 'em out.
Take away the computers, automatic transmissions, airbags, seatbelts, cruise controls, traffic-scanning radars and the GPS. In short, take away anything that removes the consequences for being an idiot. Give them back a clutch, a crash box and the "Armstrong Steering" to keep them focused on operating the vehicle because it requires so much effort.
Make 'em put down the cell phone and drive.
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