Will We Still Drive Our Cars (Or Will Our Cars Drive Us)?

By Bruce McCall

Not that today is any slouch: We already have onboard navigation systems and infrared night vision and in-car satellite links and antiskid brakes and other electronic Samaritans poised to take control when we screw up behind the wheel. Jaguar's adaptive cruise control, available today, tracks the speed and position of the car in the lane ahead and automatically adjusts the speed to keep a safe time interval.

Just around the corner, say all the big automakers, are smart highways embedded with millions of tiny sensors and even smarter cars that are constantly aware of the traffic that is flowing around them. Drivers in the not-too-distant future, they say, will navigate from their home to the nearest freeway entrance ramp, at which point the collision-detection computer will take over. Commuters will barrel down the highway at 120 m.p.h., with only a few inches between their car and the next. But will they worry? No, they'll be checking the NASDAQ and gabbing on their cell phone and scouring eBay until they reach their programmed exit--finally ushering in the age of fully automated motoring first promised in GM's spectacular "Futurama" exhibit at the 1939 New York World's Fair.

So much for the near horizon. What about the longer view? The human imagination may simply not be sufficiently stretchable to visualize what cars and driving will have come to 25 years from now.

On the other hand, one can hope. This one hopes most of all for cars you can fast-forward through those boring long drives on the interstate. Zzzap! There goes Nebraska! Better yet--say it's 2025 and you're driving to Atlantic City or your mother-in-law's or a Jim Nabors concert. Just flip a switch, and the Zeno's Paradox-based, drive-by-wire, fuzzy-logic antidestination override feature cuts in to make sure you never get there.

What about a car horn that sprays sedatives into the air to knock out the idiot driver ahead and get him out of your way? On-the-run oil changes should be within reach of automotive science by the year 2025. And nuisance-sensing, high-voltage "stun cushions" to silence backseat drivers for the duration. Smart windshield wipers that shred any leaflet, handbill or parking ticket stuck under them? By 2025, a cinch.

I dream of a sensor that sounds a buzzer when a child's liquid content nears full, homes in on the nearest public bathroom and, when you get there, brakes the car to a stop in one-fifth of a second and opens the door even faster. They could call it Bladdermatic. I long for interior window surfaces chemically coated to atomize dog-slobber on contact.

Let's hope that the subtle interaction between driver and passenger is more closely studied and that friction-reducing measures result. For example, CD systems programmed to play three, four, even five discs simultaneously, ending those music lovers' spats that so often end in compromise, Celine Dion and listening misery for one and all.

I see no reason why, within the next quarter-century, the industry can't at last conquer a driving menace as old as the automobile itself. Think of it: a built-in car-sickness detector, able to identify the motion-queasy before they get into the car and start whining, and instantly bar their entry. Surely it's not asking too much to expect cars of the future to incorporate a dainty but palpable electric shock that reminds front-seat passengers to keep their stupid feet off the dashboard?

My personal dream machine will come complete with a push-button Rattlefinder, to locate and erase those mysterious internal clonking noises--a hidden cause of road rage--and a RadarScope Trez-R-Search, to burrow deep down into the seat cushions and retrieve coins, tokens, pens and French fries our grandparents would have given up for lost.

Finally, I'd pay extra for an onboard supercomputer able to sense a parking spot 10 blocks away and beam an electronic force field there to save it until I arrived. Whoops, this just in: experts now forecast that by the year 2025 there won't be any parking spots. Drat! There goes the age-old dream of a handheld, Star Wars-based, in-car parking-meter jamming device.

Bruce McCall is a writer and illustrator and frequent contributor to the New Yorker. He is working on a book about the '50s