The future of motor vehicle travel was just unveiled at the World Congress on Intelligent Transportation Systems in San
Francisco. Engineers from 80 countries gathered to discuss innovations in driving such as talking cars and smart automobiles,
when all Americans really want is to get the full-sized spare tire back in our trunks.
This year's event included such revelations as "sixth sense sensors" that allow automobiles to instantaneously alert
vehicles behind them of unsafe conditions.
For example, if a car comes across a freeway hazard that's truly perilous — say, a patch of ice, or Billy Joel or a pizza
delivery driver motoring down the on ramp, it text messages the car behind to adjust to unsafe conditions..
Also on display were eyeglasses with infrared sensors that sense when you're about to doze off triggering a
woman's voice that says, "You are too drowsy to drive safely!"
Through force of habit the man behind the wheel then retorts, "Do you want to drive?! And I don't want your mother
staying for three days at Thanksgiving, two days is long..." when he finally realizes his wife isn't in the car.
Also unveiled was something called a "driver-less bus" which is not to be confused with that innovation introduced by
USAir a few years back, "the passenger-less plane."
This bus steers itself and can do everything a regular bus does, presumably including tooling past people waving frantically
from atop bus benches in rainstorms.
Some of these innovations are already available in Europe, but won't appear in the U.S. for years.
While we wait, I can think of additional advances I'd like to see in automotive travel. Such as:
THE AUTOMATIC MIDDLE FINGER
We're a nation where the kindest, gentlest person gets behind the wheel of a car and turns into something resembling
the most sadistic, vilest monster ever seen in a horror movie, or, in extreme cases, even basketball coach Bobby Knight.
In Los Angeles we're fast approaching the point where motorists begin suffering mass repetitive motion injuries to their
middle fingers from overuse, creating a health care crisis that will make Avian flu look like a skinned knee. So, engineers, how about
an automatic digit that immediately flies up when we've been cut off or tailgated? Get this done, and I think we're talking
Nobel Prize
THE UNDOCUMENTED ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT DOING 45 IN THE FAST LANE ALERT
It may not be PC to state, but this is a problem. This alarm would give us time to find a less frustrating detour to the
supermarket, such as off-roading it over the Andes Mountains.
THE LOUD MUSIC ALERT
An alarm notifying you to roll up your windows as you're approaching an SUV at a red light that features an "artist"
screaming profanities on a sound system that has a larger number of speakers than the stage at a Foghat concert.
THE NEARLY DRIVER-LESS VEHICLE WARNING
A sensory device alerting cars they're almost upon a 90-year-old woman barely peering over the wheel of an ancient Buick
the size of an Exxon oil tanker, the difference being no Exxon tanker has ever leaked this much oil. The trailing motorist can now
take evasive action, such as preparing his automatic middle finger, something he wouldn't dream of doing if he encountered this
undoubtedly gentle-souled lady on the street, but behind the wheel, it's "Eat my dust, Grandma."
Of the above I think the drowsy-warning glasses are my favorite. But why limit it to automotive travel? Let's develop
glasses that also shout, "You're actually going to the beach in those speedos, lardo?" And, "ATTENTION,
SUPERMARKET SHOPPERS — THIS IMBECILE, FRANK R. KETCHUMSON, HAS 27 ITEMS AND THE EXPRESS AISLE IS 12
ITEMS OR LESS! AND — HE'S PLANNING TO PAY BY CHECK."
Finally, auto engineers of the world, I propose a compromise — if we make it a high tech, supersonic wheel equipped with
infrared sensors manufactured by NASA, then can we get the full-size spare tire back? Just wondering.
