A growing disconnect . . .

A columnist in Macleans offered a comment related to the troubles Toyota is having with its runaway cars. While there certainly are real mechanical problems, he felt the more serious issue was related to our not being able to do anything with our cars other than drive them. He had a point.

The red flag for him was the fellow who raced on with his Toyota Prius, ignoring the requests of a chasing police cruiser that he put the thing into neutral. The driver confessed he thought of that (and hopefully did when the officer bellowed it at him from the cruiser loudspeaker), but was afraid that the car might roll or go out of control if he tried.

It’s an example of our current disconnect with our vehicles, not to mention most aspects of our technology.

There was a time when most men, and some women (their failing due to being kept to the sidelines of an area claimed as male ground), had a pretty good general idea of how a car worked. Opening their engine bonnets, they could likely identify a lot of the things sticking up in there: air cleaner, carburetor, ignition wires, radiator, etc. Although they might not be prepared to don coveralls and work on them, they had a reasonable knowledge of what went on underneath, that there was an engine with pistons hopping up and down, a transmission that converted the engine speed to various road speeds, and a power connection to the wheels by either a drive shaft to the rear, or short axles in the front that flexed with what were called “CV Joints”– connections that tended to wear out and cost $$$.

Open the engine bonnet on modern vehicles, and you find it chock full of this and that, gizmos and gadgets and do-flickeys that even some mechanics have to ponder before coming to an educated guess. Our only acceptable business under there is to check the windshield wash, a task many leave to the mechanics, since the designers like to place the similar reservoirs for wash, engine antifreeze, and sometimes power steering fluid side by side as a clever trap for the unwary. And is there even an engine in there? Your vehicle could be completely electric, your little gas engine might be sharing space with an electric motor, or part of what you’re looking at might be transaxle. Sometimes you have to get a good look under things to see whether your engine is actually sideways.

Our own car has no “gears” in its transmission– a belt and pulley system adjusts the engine speed to the drive wheels in a continuous fashion, no shifts are felt. “Is it shifting OK?” No, it’s not shifting at all. It’s a CV transmission!

We’re moving into an age where many drivers don’t have the foggiest notion of what organism is operating under it all, and frankly don’t feel a need to know, nor an inclination to learn. It’s not needed. A car is something you get into, turn the key (or press the button on some cars), and off you go. If the car suddenly speeds up and seems out of control– it’s cause is a mystery, second only to the mystery of what the devil you might do about it.

Of necessity, we’ve become just “users”… consumers in their worst state. Unable to understand the devices that are thrust at us, we assume safe operation and get in our cockpits, whether it be a nearly 1800 kg vehicle (I threw that in to remind us that we really know little about the Metric system and 90% of Canadians probably have no concept of just how heavy that really is), or if it’s our ever more complicated “hand held device” that can do a hundred things, probably, possibly even act as a telephone, which is why we bought it in the first place.

I’ve always been a teckie, a driveway mechanic, and someone with an insatiable desire to see how things work, and can invariably figure out how to get things to do what I want, but I have to shake my head when I see new devices, and mutter, “How do they expect the common person to actually use this?”

I would suspect that the average user of newer electronic devices, whether it be a fancy cell phone, a GPS, a new HD television, or the enhanced dashboard devices on many cars, gets control of about 25% of the potential use. “You can also do this with it…” I start to say, but I see their eyes begin to glaze over. “Just set it so I can– (1) listen to the radio (2) play a movie (3) drive the thing to work (4) call my mother (5) shut the ^&%$#$% thing off.”

So it’s understandable that the Prius driver had concerns about shifting the hurtling little hybrid into “neutral”. What the heck is “neutral” anyway? To some of us, it was the area of the shift lever sticking up from the floor that you moved to on the way from one gear to another. You crossed through neutral and rammed the thing up into third. Those with a vague notion of what was whirring under their feet knew that it was when the transmission disengaged one gear connection and was moving through the grease to the next engagement. In later years, as it is today, it was the spot between moving the shift lever from “drive” to “reverse”. This knowledge came with a vague notion that we were giving the thing a brief rest before turning everything backwards, and perhaps it reinforced the idea that it would be best to be stopped before doing so. In the back of our minds, we maintained the belief that shifting into “P” at highway speeds might spatter the landscape with everything on our vehicle from the crankcase to the cupholder, but a clear notion of what “neutral” was seems to have slipped away.

“Shift it into Neutral!” What might that have seemed to the Prius pilot? Neutral? Like Switzerland in the Big Dubayew-Dubayew-Two? Who knows what went through his head, as he attempted to translate that “N” on the gearshift into something more than just a letter that he had always seen there. A disconnect. Consuming the vehicle, but not really understanding it.

There’s a tragically funny commercial on TV at the moment, where a sassy, flippant young man saunters through an office, brushing off workers around him with insolent comments. “Shut the door,” he tells a worker who attempts to get his attention. “Why don’t we get rid of him?” asks one employee. “We can’t,” is the reply. “He’s the only one who can start the computers.”

So we move on; I hesitate at times to say Forward. The devices will come at us fast and furious, we will master 25% of their capability and struggle with the rest, geeks (like me) who understand the stuff will command far more power than they deserve, and we will all attempt to be consumers. We will use the stuff as best we can, make assumptions as to when it is broken, throw it in the garbage when it is, and hope that our refrigerator– that can also go on the Internet and search for recipes for the stuff we have rotting on its shelves– won’t also be able to kill us like a bolting Toyota.

And did I mention the e-Bombs that the US utilized in Iraq, that can destroy all electronic devices without seriously harming the people or buildings in a nation?

Another time . . .

4 thoughts on “A growing disconnect . . .

  1. “certainly are real mechanical problems…..(with Toyotas)”. You’re certain about that?? I have yet to read of a honest-to-goodness mechanical problem! You mentioned the San Diego Prius which had the cop car on his tail and the cop using his loud-hailer. The US NHTSA (National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration) AND a team of Toyota trouble shooters were on this case within hours, independently investigating and sharing info after the fact. Not mentioned in your piece is that modern cars have event driven recorders that reveal much. They were not so much invented to spy on people as to help with diagnosing car problems reported by customers to the car-makers. Just like an airplane’s flight recorder, much info can be downloaded.
    That San Diego Prius had data revealed that the car was speeding for as much as 225 miles! And, during all that time, the brakes were never fully depressed. There WAS much deterioration of the front brakes but the rear brakes were perfect. The suspicion is that the driver was lightly applying the brakes with his left foot, WITH HIS RIGHT FOOT ON THE GAS!
    Possibly interesting were such minor details as a bankruptcy and unpleasant prior words by the driver at the dealership. And, with the results of the event recorder now revealed, the driver is NO LONGER saying that he will settle for a new car as replacement. “I’ll get this one fixed.”
    One day after the San Diego incident, a house-keeper in New York drove her boss’s Prius down the long driveway of a fine property and crashed it into a stone wall. The claim was unintended acceleration. The investigation showed that the throttle was at a 99.9% application. Brake application was 0%!!! No charges were laid because the driver did not intend to deceive.
    People might remember the Audi ‘problem’ of 20 to 25 years ago — again, unintended acceleration. I can still see Morley Safer on TV’s “60 Minutes”, talking to all the ‘victims’. That mess just seemed to fizzle away.
    About a year later, I recall reading a column in “Car and Driver” magazine by Brock Yates. Nothing was ever shown that Audi was at fault but the incidents led to all automatic transmissions in all new cars by all manufacturers having to have an interlock so that the transmission lever could not be moved out of the “P” position UNLESS THE BRAKES WERE APPLIED. We live with that today. Brock Yates wrote the memorable line in that article: “Yes, Martha, they really DID have their foot on the gas”.
    Many commentators now suggest that what is going on is a fine mix (‘mess’??) of honest error and attempts at fraud. Add ‘copycat’ism to that mix!
    The other day, on CNBC, someone mentioned a university study sponsored by NHTSA that a large percentage of drivers of a certain age — older — lose track of what pedal is being depressed. Brock said the same thing 20 years ago! Maybe now we can better understand why you are taught to use just a single foot while driving your automatic car — the right foot.
    More people ARE unaware of how their car works and modestly technical ‘guys’ are inhibited from getting to know their car. You can hardly see the engine for cover on it and everything is checked by computers. I can see a future where technical schools will have programs for training chauffeurs.

  2. Oh-oh… Don the Fact Man is after me again!

    As I have mentioned at times before, I’m not s stickler for facts, an admission that might cut Don to the core, but my intent is often to target attitudes, trends, changes, and observations of human behavior. Facts, like the mention of the San Diego Prius issue, are useful in introducing the topic, but are not the core intent. While Don may well be correct that there is more to the San Diego runaway Prius claim than meets the eye, I could likely have found some other demonstration of how we are losing meaningful connection to our technology– like the young people who peck 10 times 4 into a calculator (too many of them having no apparent ability to work it out in their heads) and have no reaction at all when a slip of the finger yields 400 for an answer. Disconnect.

    Unless you can lay your hands on something and feel its metal contours, “facts” are hard to come by these days. Anyone would be a fool to believe everything in print, and in the past decade anything in a picture or video as well. Hopefully we all realize that “facts” from big industry, big government, big anything (even big church) have been worked by the spin doctors before being released– and then the media applies its twist. “Little” anything would do it as well, and often crudely attempt it without a budget for hiring the experts. Honesty and responsibility are rare commodities, not just in politicians.

    “‘certainly are real mechanical problems…..’ (with Toyotas). You’re certain about that?? I have yet to read of a honest-to-goodness mechanical problem!” (Don)

    Am I certain of real mechanical problems with Toyotas, Don? I can’t imagine that Toyota recalled 4 million vehicles in November/09 and 2.3 million in January, at an estimated cost of $2 billion, for replacement of accelerator pedals unless there was an actual mechanical problem with them. I think they have admitted that.

    The issue of whether they have a software problem is unresolved. As you mentioned, there are charlatans out there, there are copy-cats, but there seem as well to be scattered cases that defy easy explanation. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak seems to feel that his own Prius has an issue, though one he can control, that is software related and shouldn’t be there: Steve Wozniak comments

    This NHTSA report lists a number of accident situations, some explainable by driver error, some without easy explanation: NHTSA report

    While there are event recorders in many vehicles these days, most of them record only the seconds before a crash event, over-writing anything prior to that. Toyota has been less than open with exactly what their recorders save, and access to them has been limited. Conveniently, they have been doing the reading (until lately they had only one computer in North America that had the software to read the EDR’s)… they are now in the process of supplying the NHTSA with some.

    EDR issues

    Problems after recalls done

    Although you cite the San Diego incident as a scam, which it well may be, others still don’t seem to be as sure: Uncertain if Prius event is settled

    My article intent, rather than opening a can of worms on Toyota vehicles, was as I mentioned: to discuss the way the majority of people are becoming divorced from activities by a technology that we can barely manage, and certainly not fully understand.

    I’ve always felt that Toyotas are fine vehicles– in fact I’m selfishly hoping that the current troubles will lower their normally high resale value enough that I can pick up a slightly used Camry when our current car wears out!

    But I’ll probably watch it carefully…

  3. Being late adopters of new technology, we still require a key (metal key) to open the doors of our minivan. (The mechanic’s billing person just yesterday looked at us with shock — “You’re driving THAT to Canada???”)

    As to cell phones, we’re beginning to move ahead in the world. Just this AM I tried to use a Rogers sim card in a phone which, as it turned out, was “locked” to AT&T. And I was “smart” enough not to fiddle further with THAT phone. Happily THAT phone only cost $20.

    Last week I returned a phone to AT&T (they allow you one returned phone when buying directly from their online store) because the more I tried to get it to act like a phone (all we wanted to do was make calls!), the more it wanted to download ringtones, music, and who knows what else from the internet. I couldn’t even make the background clear up enough to be able to see the letters on the screen!

    Then there’s the other AT&T cell … the “locked” one. While I was amazed that with a $20 phone I could send emails (through Yahoo) and go to my website, it has this annoying feature that everytime you hit the “accept” button at the wrong moment, it goes online … and charges me $0.04 before I can cancell.

    I HAD ordered a more old fashioned, “unlocked” 4-band phone a week ago, hopeing that I could use it for Rogers … but the seller (eBay) apparently forgot to ship it … until I made an inquiry. Hurrah for “old fashioned” customer service!

    Now back to Twitter.

  4. Fun! and so true! All of you.
    All we need now is some flash brained AI robots that can outdo even our best teckie geeks. Then the flash brains can have it all their own way and kill or save us at will, since none of us will understand the “big picture”, not even the geeks- at that speed.

    But then, I’m only one of the “sidelined”.

    Yet still I delight in it all,the buttons and bells, the wires and the gizmos, the good, the bad, the flash and the geeks. What a wonderful world!

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