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Are Driverless Vehicles Spooky?
It’s kind of spooky but exciting at the same time. I think it’s a given that driverless cars are coming. I’m not sure whether I really like the idea but it’s cool if it’s going to make our roads safer – at least I hope it will. And if our roads will be safer, then I guess that’s a really good thing. What doesn’t sit with me is that the fun of physically driving a car could be taken away, and I really like driving a car round corners, up hills and through the city streets. I hope travelling doesn’t become boring and less of an adventure.
Then there are the thousands of drivers who make a living from driving a vehicle. Just think of all taxi drivers, bus drivers or even truck drivers who could be made redundant. That’s not very cool in my book. Some people are driving their imaginary cars before they’re walking, and to have to deal with a loss of a job that you’ve built your life on would be a very hard pill to swallow. Goodness knows what other job will give them a sense of satisfaction. People might say they’ll find something else to do, but it’s not quite that simple having to start from the bottom up again – not to mention having to deal with the increase in job competition.
Self-driving cars are coming. Tesla is aiming to have their fully driverless car ready by 2018, and that’s not that far away! Many other companies have plans to produce some form of self-driving car by 2020. Uber is another driverless car manufacturer leading the way. I can see one hassle in the way, and that is that not everyone will be able to afford a brand new driverless car!
There is evidence that we are more likely to see a driverless truck in practice before a self-driving car. In much the same way a passenger aircraft is flown automated, we’re going to see the big rigs automated on our roads. If their speed is limited to the proper speed limits, that’s definitely a big plus in my book. Make sure that driver aids like cycle and pedestrian warning systems are standard on all trucks – particularly in the blind spot areas that run along the side of the trucks. If planes can be flown through fog and landed safely in auto mode, then that is a good thing. The systems on-board the aircraft can fly the plane better than a pilot in pretty much all situations – particularly in fog. Transfer that thought to a big rig steaming down our road in the wet, and the outcome for public safety can only be way better than a rig sliding out of control.
An alarm bell rings when I consider the potential terrorist risks that self-driven cars might bring. I’m sure the gurus behind the technology are well aware of this. When I think of that scary thought, my trusty old blue Navara TD23 double-cab doesn’t sound so bad after all. At least I’ll still be able to enjoy the fun of driving the old girl down to the river to pick up some firewood and let the dog out for a run and feel a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. I wonder if driverless 4x4s are on the agenda – that might be a test for the fancy radars!
Please Fasten Your Seatbelts
We all know that seatbelts save lives. Why the Swedish inventor of the three-point seatbelt, Nils Bohlin of Volvo , didn’t get one of the Nobel Prizes for his invention, given the number of deaths his invention has prevented is something of a mystery. He did get a medal of some sort during his lifetime and was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame, so that does give him some of the recognition he deserves.
However, there are those idiots who still don’t wear seat belts. One wants to bang the heads of these idiots against a wall until they see sense, except that (a) this would result in a serious assault charge and (b) if they keep on not wearing seatbelts, they’re going to bang their own heads against the steering wheel, dashboard or worse one of these days.
Car manufacturers don’t like their vehicles featuring on the fatal crash list, so they are taking steps to make sure that we are fastening our seatbelts – and they’re providing better ones, too, with most modern vehicles having three-pointers all around the vehicle, including the middle seat at the back. They also take steps to make sure that you actually wear the seatbelts they have so thoughtfully provided. Back in the 1970s, the manufacturers flirted with the idea of a system that refused to start the engine unless the driver was safely buckled in, but this was banned by the US Congress in 1974 – goodness knows why.
Most cars prefer to have a seatbelt warning light of some description. In some vehicles, this applies to the driver’s seat only; in others, the system considers the front passenger and/or the rear seats. The warning system usually flashes lights or beeps until the buckle clicks home properly. The variety that involves the driver’s seat is the simplest. After all, a car will always have a driver if the engine is on and the vehicle is moving; it doesn’t always have front passengers. The driver-only versions start flashing and beeping if the key is in the ignition and the engine is on or some similar indication that you’re not just sitting there with the engine off waiting for your daughter’s ballet lessons to come to an end… or watching a romantic sunset from the front seat with a significant other.
The systems that throw a hissy fit if the passengers don’t buckle up usually have some sort of pressure or weight sensor in the seats. After all, nobody wants a warning light to go off to tell you to buckle in a non-existent passenger. These are pretty sensitive, too. You don’t need much weight to make the seat think that it’s got a passenger on board. For a parent, these are a godsend, as you know straight away if little Jason has got bored during the trip to Grandma’s and has undone the seatbelt while fiddling with it. If the seat belt comes undone, on goes the little warning light.
The only drawback with the passenger detection systems is that they think any weight at all is a passenger, as happened to my mother when out shopping in her Subaru Outback . Mum grabbed a few litres of milk and some other goodies, and plonked them on the front seat beside her as she drove off. However, the weight of two 2-litre milk bottles was enough to make the passenger seat detector throw a wobbly and (in her words) scream at her. As Mum was now on the road, she wasn’t in a position to reach over to the far side of the vehicle and grab the seatbelt to plug it in and shut the warning system up. She could, however, reach the milk bottles and sat there trying to shove the bottles off the seat and into the footwell, the alarm screaming at her all the time. Talk about trying to drive while distracted! Just as well she wasn’t trying to shove eggs around as well…
One also wonders what would happen with other loads carried on the back seat. We’ve all done this, haven’t we? Don’t we all toss our bags and coats into the back of the sedan? What about the cat carrier when taking Tiddles to the vet? Thankfully, a lot of warning lights for the rear seat don’t make noises at the driver but just have a little light. However, given the trend towards having more safety systems in our cars – and a good trend, too – it probably won’t be long until rear seat passenger detection systems start beeping at us as well. When this happens, we’ll all have to do the following:
- Put things in the boot or in the footwell;
- Get car seat harnesses for the dog;
- Plug the seatbelt in before placing a load that can’t be buckled in onto the seat (e.g. that large houseplant that’s too tall for the boot and/or the cat carrier.
And, of course, we need to keep wearing our seatbelts. No excuses – buckle up!
Why Don’t Car Ads Target Women?
Just in case you haven’t noticed, this is 2016 (the latter half of 2016 at that). This isn’t Saudi Arabia. In other words, there are just as many women as there are men holding drivers’ licences in this part of the world (although I haven’t checked the exact stats). However, the people who make the car ads don’t seem to have caught up on this. Pause and think about all the car ads that you’ve seen recently. Not many of them feature women as the driver, except for a few for people-movers that show Mum ferrying around tons of kids (has anyone told these advertisers that this isn’t the 1950s?).
This situation was nicely highlighted by a team of comedians (female ones) from across the Tasman in this rather popular video clip (please excuse the four-letter words) that parodies a Holden Colorado ad:
This got me thinking about (a) the cars my female friends drive and (b) the number of commercials that feature women as the driver (not as the passenger or as some form of detachable decoration). My friends drive 4x4s, utes, small sedans, vans, hatchbacks, station wagons… the full range of vehicles. Most of them forked out their own money for said vehicles, too. And they don’t just use the cars as Mum’s Taxis, either (not surprising, seeing as several of them either don’t have kids or else their kids have grown up and left home or got their own licences). They’re using the cars to go to sports training, to go to work, to go to school, to take a load of garbage down to the dump, to tow the horse float and to carry out contracting work (and farm work). In short, they use vehicles the same way as my guy friends do. But the car ads? No – as far as they’re concerned, it’s guys who buy cars and drive them… apart from those people-movers.
Nope, it’s guys all the way for the typical car ad. In the case of utes and trucks, the not-so-subtle message is that these vehicles are what you drive if you’re a Real Man:
But us women? We’re only allowed to drive people-movers with tons of kids and the dog on board, according to the makers of car ads:
Nissan tried to target women buyers a few years ago, they really did, with the infamous ad for the Tiida that features Sex and the City actress Kim Cattrall. At least they tried, but using sex to sell anything shows a lack of imagination.
To be fair some manufacturers are starting to wake up to the surprising fact that it’s not just guys who drive and buy cars. Audi tried a social media campaign (#womendrivers https://twitter.com/search?q=%23womendrivers&src=typd), where users were tempted to click the hashtag, expecting to see a funny story about women driving badly but instead got a story about actual real women driving properly. However, the campaign aimed at busting stereotypes ended up backfiring (unlike the Audis themselves).
Holden has also come up with a real, fair dinkum ad (for the Spark ) that specifically targets younger women drivers.
Actually, despite the rip-off commercial, Holden seems to be doing pretty well for targeting women, as a quick peek through their YouTube channel and their ads seems to have at least a smattering of women drivers. Even the real Colorado ad seems to have realised this, so well done, Holden!
Come on, the rest of you car advertisers! Time to realise that you’re completely overlooking 50% of potential buyers!
Weird, Wild and Wacky Concept Cars – Maybe
It’s a pity that the Tokyo Motor Show only comes around every two years. This is because this particular motor show is famous – or should that be notorious – for revealing some rather unusual concept cars. Yes, the world also gets to see some great new developments from the top Japanese manufacturers and designers, but we also love looking at and laughing at some of the downright crazy ideas that some designers come up with.
Mind you, are they that crazy? After all, speculation, imagination, exploring the limits of what’s possible and trying new things is how new technologies are invented. However, some ideas are crazier than others. Take the following offerings from the 2015 Tokyo Motor Show.
Just to get us all thinking, each of these concepts showcased here gets a craziness rating out of ten and a final verdict:
Nissan Teatro for Dayz:
Most of the interior, including the display panels, the interior lighting, the headrests and more can be customised via a smartphone app. It’s got built-in ability to take selfies. What happens when several passengers inside the car have the same app isn’t clear. It could also be vulnerable to hackers.
Craziness rating: 7/10
Verdict: Why not? It’s not that different from changing the playlist being streamed on the audio, really.
Nissan Concept 2020 Vision Gran Turismo
It looks like something a 13-year-old would doodle on the inside of a maths book, to pinch a brilliant phrase from Jeremy Clarkson. This is probably because it’s going to be driven at very high speeds by 13-year-old boys. Don’t panic: it’s only going to be driven virtually. This concept car is actually designed for the Grand Turismo 6 computer game.
Craziness rating: 4/10
Verdict: Almost a caricature of what a street racer or performance car should look like, so not really pushing the envelope. Not my cup of tea but if the rumours that it will inspire the styling of future sporting Nissans are true, it will be popular.
Honda Wander Stand
Shown in the picture alongside the more practical Honda Wander Walker scooter, the Wander Stand is a sort of box that fits two people and can move in eight directions (forward and back, left and right, and all four diagonals).
Craziness rating: 7/10
Verdict: There’s an older invention that works just as well most of the time, known as “feet”.
Toyota Kikai
If the front end isn’t bizarre enough, just wait until you see the back of this dune buggy: it’s backside is naked, revealing the engine.
Craziness rating: 8/10
Verdict: The styling alone gets it a high craziness rating. And is this dune buggy actually supposed to be driven with a naked engine on actual real sand?
Suzuki Mighty Deck
The name’s bigger than the vehicle. This could be described as the mongrel offspring of a Mini and a single-cab ute. It’s teeny (and looks like a Mini Cooper at the front) but it has an open deck out the back. If you’re asking why, it’s because vans, trucks, utes and similar commercial vehicles get a tax break in Japan, even if they’re miniature.
Craziness rating: 5/10
Verdict: The idea of a teeny weeny ute that might just be able to fit a lamb or a Labrador is ludicrous to the typical Aussie mind (especially if you’re a rural type) but if it’s done to make the most of a tax loophole, that’s actually quite sensible. It has a certain cute factor but I won’t be buying one.
Mercedes-Benz Vision Tokyo
It’s self-driving. It looks like a prop from a sci-fi movie (mind you, so do plenty of other concept cars). The seating is more like a couch where the passengers (there is no driver) face each other and the steering wheel (should you want one) retracts or pops out. Maps and the like are projected in the middle of the cabin as holograms.
Craziness rating: 9/10
Verdict: Where’s the lightsabre storage compartment and the teleporter?
Daihatsu Noriori
The name seems to be a blend of two dwarves from Tolkien’s The Hobbit, but this actually is quite a good idea. The point of the Noriori is that you can get wheelchairs and prams into it very easily, then lock them in place.
Craziness rating: 4/10
Verdict: Could be some issues with seatbelt compliance regulations but a nice thought.
Toyoda Gosei Flesby
It’s soft and squashy, meaning that if you hit a pedestrian, he/she won’t be hurt (much), at least not if you’re travelling at low speeds. It’s steered via joysticks, and can customise the lighting, scent and posture depending on the driver’s mood… which it senses.
Craziness rating: 7/10
Verdict: I wanted to give this a higher craziness rating because the idea of a squishy soft car steered by joysticks that picks out a scent to suit what it thinks is your mood is so quirky. However, developing materials to enhance pedestrian safety isn’t that wacky, so I knocked off a couple of points on those grounds.
Now, here’s hoping that in 30 years’ time, people don’t look at this post and shake their heads at our lack of foresight because we thought some of these ideas were crazy…
Level 2, 9 Help Street