Give Me Waymo or Give Me an 8-Track Player
I want smart features in the car about as much as I want a schoolmarm looking over my shoulder as I write this blog post. (Blog Post)
Sometimes, the moderate road is the wrong road. GKC said that somewhere.
It's kinda how I feel about fornication. If you're going to forsake the sacramental bed, you might as well bang as many women as possible. Monogamous sex without marriage makes about as much sense as non-alcoholic beer. If I were a rich rake, I'd be Tiger Woods, not a shmo with a longtime girlfriend.
Today's smart cars are the dumbest thing possible because they're straddling the center line between the driving lane and the riding lane, and hurtling down the center line ain't a good thing.
I had no idea what intrusive sons-of-bitches these things had become until my wife got a new Honda Odyssey and the clever bastard locked her fob (short for "fock-off, bastard") in the car while we were on vacation (without the backup fob).
I had already grown tired of her van constantly beeping at me on the drive. When my car beeps at me, I want it to be because my engine or my scrotum is about to explode, not because I'm merging lanes with only 14 feet distance instead of 15. All the beeps and shimmies and phantom braking/steering sets my amygdala off repeatedly. It's like that time I got lost in downtown Detroit while walking to the parking garage after a Red Wings game. Every shadow and bump startled me as I walked in the middle of the street, trying to put distance between me and the alleys and doorways.
I've always loathed the phrase "driving experience," but it's making more sense to me now. When I drive, I want to, you know, experience it. Feel it, make my own decisions, be responsible and responsive. All the smart features make me less responsible and, I'm guessing, less responsive.
That's why I think these way stations on the road to self-driving cars are a scourge and I won't buy one.
BUT: When we get to the point where we all have self-driving cars, that'll be great. I'll no longer be confused about whether I'm responsible for driving well. I won't be driving, period. I'll be reading, drinking a beer, whatever. But not driving.
In the meantime, however, I'm driving my daughter's old 2013 Chevy Cobalt. It ain't much to look at, but it lets me drive.