The Self Driving Car Can’t Get Here Fast Enough

The Self Driving Car Can’t Get Here Fast Enough

I have seen a couple of test cars on the news recently that are totally self-driving. One was an Audi and another a Mercedes. Leave it to the Germans to want to be first in the big world of car automation and to that I say “Yawhol.” I am sure they are up to the task to enable us to ride in cars and safely get to where we want to go without putting a hand on the wheel or a foot on a peddle.

As much as I would like to ride in my car needlepointing away and not have to bother with doing any of the driving there are two groups of people who need this invention more; small children who are too young to drive and old people who should have their driving privileges revisited.

Although it seems like a nice idea to be able to put a three-year-old in a car and have them delivered to pre-school I don’t think that is going to happen anytime soon. Kids still need a parent’s hand to hold when they get out of a car, so I am nominating the elderly as the first group we should give self-driving cars to.

Specifically I would like to nominate the nice look older man with the silver hair in the button down shirt who was driving a grey Prius today in Chapel Hill at the intersection of Legion Road and Ephesus Church road at three in the afternoon. As anyone who had ever driven west on Ephesus Church road toward 15/501 knows the road can get very backed up at that light.

I was heading the opposite way and wanted to make a left hand turn at the light at Legion road. Since the cars were so backed up I waved at this nice looking man who was going the opposite way and asked if I could turn left since the traffic his way was at a dead stop. The old guy looked me dead in the eye from his non-tinted windows and mouthed, “Fu%& you” and pulled to the center of the intersection blocking anyone turning. There I sat with my face right next to his trying to go the other direction.

I rolled my window down and in my nicest southern voice said, “I know you have the right of way and I’m happy you are exercising your rights, but I’m very embarrassed for you that you have to sit here stuck in traffic and look at me after you swore at me for just asking to make a turn when you clearly are not going anywhere anyway.” The light then changed giving me a green arrow to make a left hand turn, but I was unable to do it since he was still stuck in the traffic of his side. The light changed again and the people trying to turn from Legion road were now blocked because he was still there. Eventually the light at 15/501 changed and his lane moved forward.

If that man had been in a properly programed self-driving car that did not block an intersection that was backed up none of this would have happened. Well he might have still screamed an obscenity, but he might not have had to sit through two light changes looking at the person he cussed out.

I just hope that the self driving car programmers have someone with manners on their team and program the cars to do what is nice as well as safe and not just what is someone’s right.