Every field of human endeavor has changed significantly in the past 100 years, and as technology advances and improves, they will continue to change and evolve. Some of those fields are not where you want to actually see innovation, but leave it to human ingenuity to find ways to do every activity in a new and innovative manner, even if the activity itself is probably not something you want them to innovate.
In this case, I speak of bad driving.
Ever since the car was invented, people have been finding ways to operate it poorly. The last big innovation in the field came with the mass adoption of cell phones, as the bad drivers of the world embraced the ‘text and drive’ method of ensuring their cars were completely unguided. When that was made illegal, they didn’t stop, instead opting for the “still text and drive, but convince yourself you’re being sneaky by putting your phone on your knee” method, which doesn’t fool police officers but does ensure they’re looking at nothing that even resembles a road.
But how were the bad drivers of the world going to top texting and driving? They could combine it with other bad habits – texting and driving while drunk, texting and driving while driving very slowly on the highway, texting while driving very quickly through a school zone – but it seemed like the pinnacle of bad driving. How could they find a way to drive that was even less intelligent than simultaneously texting?
I am here to tell you that they found a way. And, much like the last frontier of terrible driving, they did it through the embrace of technology.
It starts with the electric car. Specifically, a Nissan Leaf spotted in Regina, but other electric cars are available, and stupidity is not determined by the brand of one’s car but by the content of one’s character. The fact that the car is electric explains why they have chosen to push the bad driving envelope.
They have decided that instead of driving with their lights on at night, they should be able to drive with their lights off. Since all cars in Canada are mandated to have daytime running lights, they have actually gone so far as to modify their car to make it drive less safely. Their logic, presumably, is that the city has street lights so they can see just fine without having any lights on their car.
The result is a car nobody else can see. I certainly couldn’t see it as he waited for a light to change. To make it more curious as to whether or not it was a broken car or someone trying to turn left in secret, he also didn’t turn his signals on until the light changed.
I can actually understand why he did it. He was trying to save electricity in his electric car, and lights use electricity to operate. His plan, presumably, was to reduce his carbon footprint by using as few lights as possible. Then he would, inevitably, permanently eliminate his carbon footprint after someone else drove into him at high speed because they couldn’t see his car, but that hasn’t happened quite yet.
The incident showed that bad drivers have embraced technology, and use it as an excuse to drive even worse. One wonders how automation is going to push the envelope of bad driving, but they’ll find a way.
