Years back, driving a car was a complicated task as old vehicles needed numerous things from their drivers. The first and foremost was skill, of a particular level. Old models were fairly intolerant say if the clutch and shift were not used correctly, it would create an awful noise from underneath the base similar to “grinding” as if stressed gears chipped and lost their teeth. A distraction of even a split second from steering might seem troublesome. The vehicle would have changed its travel route and would be heading to the weeds or into approaching traffic.
In fact, old vehicles could not stand mistakes and any driver not desiring to finish up with a chrome handle placed in his or her forehead or unwilling to examine the power of the front windshield as a passenger retention device planned ahead. Drivers were too attentive to oncoming traffic and anticipated and got caution of turns, lane changes etc from the cars around them. (Plus none of the cars had a single cup holder!)
In response, they too signaled others about their plans by indications and intending their vehicular actions. Anybody who disobeyed these easy safety measures resulted in an injury. Even minor mishaps in an old car were severe. Prewar cars were clearly knocked down to bits in a crash, whereas the postwar cars remained further undamaged, but their occupants knocked down to chunks.
The contemporary driver need not bother so much as modern cars take care of so many things for us and we can drive them without any level of quantifiable skill. Actually, we do not even require consuming a lot of time worrying about things except how to alter the color of the disco display on the multiplex TV/GPS/inertial guidance/ satellite-assisted restaurant reservation system. Now, there is no need to give manual indications of turns or lane changes. Let’s face it as you sip coffee from your drink holder, the enormous attempt to shift the signal lever is just evidently irritating and can seriously affect your breaking of the anti-texting, anti-phoning, anti-makeup-applying, anti-coffee-sucking-breakfast-eating laws, thus ruining your commute.
Moreover, the cars surrounding you all have anti-lock brakes, computers that alter emergency lane variations, controlling and support systems and warning lights in their rearview mirrors and air bags. Most signs, like stop signs and red lights, are at best merely recommended or in any case an inventive way of extracting money for the caskets of the local town council.
Seeing how effortless our modern cars are to drive and knowing how much they do for us, there is actually no need to know how to drive. Why do we even take tests?
(Please read the above article wit heavy sarcasm. Although all of us are guilty of some of the things mentioned above, or if some of our readers have wheelchair accessories that help them drive, every driver needs to focus on the road.)
