View from a Classic Car

Everything looks different when it's painted in hues of classic Americana, with the visceral feel of a 4 speed shifter in your hand, simple but adequate brakes, and the type of suspension that allows you to both feel the road and float a little at high speeds. Even the people inside are cast in a different light. 

I spend a lot of my time in a very new, very nice car as my daily driver. It's equipped with 11 airbags, navigation, back up camera, Sirius XM Radio, etc...etc...and it's fabulous in almost every way. New cars have their place in our world, to be sure, and I can't say that I don't understand people with kids wanting the newest and safest car to keep those children safe.

But...

I'm skeptical about the real necessity of more technology in cars, really, because it's making us worse drivers.  We're use to our electronannies keeping us on course, but sometimes even the smartest cars can't correct the whopping mistakes we make as drivers.  I see it every day...people jump in cars as if it's as easy to pilot as a tricycle, and they expect to navigate the highways and traffic-congested roads without killing themselves or others.

But folks, it's not that easy.  Driving a car, depth perception, and multitasking are way harder than the average person actually believes it to be.  The car does so much of the work for us that we're virtually lulled into a auto-pilot mode where muscle memory of dealing with emergencies is virtually catatonic, and therefore makes it harder for humans to snap to a quick and accurate reaction when shit does hit the fan.

Tom Vanderbilt has done exhausting work on traffic and the human experience behind the wheel of the automobile, which he filed neatly into a little book called "Traffic: Why We Drive the Way we Do (And What it Says About Us).  He contends, as I do, that while electronannies may sometimes save our hides, that they are creating a new breed of brainless driver.  He says in an interview, "We’re definitely already in the era of "driver-assist" automobiles, with blind-spot warnings and adaptive cruise control and the like. As people who study automation have noted, these "semiautomated" processes come with very particular challenges — drivers may relax their vigilance, thinking everything is fine thanks to the car’s technology, but something might happen that actually confounds the car’s systems, and suddenly the driver is 'out of the loop'."

Beyond the idea of reusing a material or product until there's virtually nothing left (an idea I am married to...see my sweaters for reference, filled with holes and faded but beloved until they no longer function) I believe that people need more hard training in real automobiles before we're allowed loose on the city streets.  If we choose to drive these vehicles with so many gizmos to protect us, that's fine, but we should first know how to protect ourselves out there.  Relying too heavily on technology to save us means eventually we'll morph into the fat-can-barely-walk-virtual-addicts from the WALL-E movie...floating along in our isolation, content to be lazy and useless while machines do our thinking.  Where is the stimulation in that? Where's the joy?

For me, I abide by the reuse principal, and I abide the fact that when I'm out on the road, I am mostly in charge of my safety by knowing my car, knowing the laws, and knowing how to create a defensive bubble around myself.  Accidents happen, sure...I'm just convinced that 90% of the accidents happening right now aren't "accidents" at all but the product of over-estimating ones driving prowess, distractions, and just not understanding physics of the road and that an object in motion tends to stay in motion.

When I drive a classic, everything is up to me...how hard I press a set of manual brakes, my input to the steering wheel, the force of my right foot on the pedal.  I appreciate the simplicity of the classic car, the cues it gives you as feedback in the exhaust note, the vibrations, even the smells. It talks to you, works with you, it becomes your partner in this adventure on the road instead of your new-car babysitter, smacking your hand with VSC, TRAC, VDIM, EBD, etc, when you screw up.

The world is framed for us in all kinds of ways...through the helmet on the motorcycle, through the window at the office, through the windshield of your car.  I think these frames shape your perception, your reaction to and with the world though the frame.  The frame of the windshield on a 50's, 60's (some) 70's car says, "put the windows down and listen to me, listen to my cues, and your view will be larger than the frame."

And it's true. My frame of reference expands every time I let my heart experience the thrill of really driving, really driving a real car, really doing it all by myself.

Old video of the Nova on an outing, taken by a patient passenger.

Skeptically Yours.