VFD

I sell equipment, and often the equipment has a motor that needs a speed controller. We always refer to these speed controllers, whose technical name is a Varible Frequency Drive as a VFD. I was driving around the other day, frustrated with the performance of someone in a minivan, and I realized he was a Varible Frequency Driver.

I know it's cliche, I think of myself as this excellent driver and a lot of the other guys out there are morons. There are some very specific behaviors that do drive me nuts. Probably at the top of the list is drivers that speed up and slow down. Of course, they can't get you to do this too if you are on a 4 lane road, you just pass them. Inevitably, you get on a highway and someone is going at or below the speed limit in the left lane. I pass these people on the right. It's not illegal, and usually not at all risky, and it solves the problem rather than creating a new one. I've never understood the people that have an open right lane and get on someone's rear bumper, possibly honking their horn or flashing their brights. Sure, that guy should know better than to dawdle in the left lane, but I've got a news flash for you, Mr. Road Rage: You Can't Educate The World. Especially with confrontation and intimidation tactics. Do you really think that person is thinking, "Oh my, that person behind me seems most upset. I wonder why? Oh, I seem to be travelling too slowly in the passing lane. I will rectify that immediately and must remember not to do that again in the future. Lesson learned!" No, that's not what he's thinking. He's either not thinking because he's distracted, the closest thought being, "I like pie", or he's looking at you and thinking, "What an Asshole!" And he's right, by the way. Get over into the right lane and get around him. That way, if he's a problem, he's someone else's problem in your rear view mirror. Do you have a pregnant woman in labor in your car? Then you have no justification for being in that big of a hurry.

What really pisses me off when I'm in a hurry (no pregnant lady, just want to get where I'm going with no real justification for rushing - just a lifestyle choice) is what I call the rolling blockade. This is when two morons who must have just watched Top Gun or seen the Thunderbirds at an airshow, practice being some random SUV's wing man. That would be cool if they did a barrel roll and opened up on some bogeys, but usually this is accompanied by a matching of speed and an accumulation of admirers growing in their rear view mirrors. I think that this is something akin to not having or wanting to use cruise control and relying mindlessly on some random stranger to regulate your speed. This is dangerous if you overlap the car slightly and match their speed for a long time because YOU ARE IN THEIR BLIND SPOT. If they decide to change lanes rapidly (admittedly, a low probability, as these clowns rarely do anything quickly), or more likely, if a squirrel dashes out in front of them and they have to swerve to avoid little Sammy, you are in the danger zone. This is not the Tom Cruise Top Gun theme music by Kenny Loggins (why anyone thought Kenny knows anything about danger - other than fashion mistakes - is beyond me. This is the Danger Zone where you and your driving partner really get to get acquainted while you wait for the ambulance to arrive.

The biggest complaint I have about drivers is that they are much more inattentive than they used to be. We have all these safety features in cars from safety glass in the windows and seat belts in the old days to air bags and crumple zones in the newer cars. So it's getting harder to get injured in a car wreck. We've also made lanes wider, paved rumble strips into shoulders, and widened out medians and roadsides for less things to impact if you go off the road. I think some of the things that make us more safe could also lull us into a false sense of security and lower our watchfulness and caution. However, that is not what I think the main culprit is, it's cell phones. Specifically, the most dangerous thing you can do is texting while driving. It's impossible to pay attention to the road when you're staring at a little screen and hunting and pecking buttons. They say that anything that distracts or divides are attention makes us a worse driver. You could include iPods, car stereos, or even passengers as distractions, which means each of those factors makes you that much more dangerous behind the wheel. We don't even have to get into reading the newspaper or putting on makeup while you drive, the extreme versions of distraction. I've been running and walking along the country road I live on for years now, and I can testify that 10 years ago and back further in time, no one ever came close to hitting me. Now, they paved the shoulders (when they were gravel, I think people respected lane markings more) and people often point their cars right at me and don't figure it out until they are only a few seconds from hitting me. I've stepped off into the grass a few times, but more often, if I see the trend from a long way off, I step out into the road. This really snaps people to attention and they sometimes even overcorrect into the other lane. I am always safely back on the far side of the shoulder by the time they get closer, but it seems to make the point.

The science shows I listen to have been talking about robotic cars lately. The technology is slowly working its way to hands free driving. Right now we have automatic lane tending, collision avoidance warnings, and adaptive cruise control, and it can't be that hard to mate up the current GPSs that map out an exact route with some kind of navigation system. The technology will slowly increase to the point where you can get in a car and sit back and read the paper and not even look at the traffic. When I used to imagine computer controlled or autopiloted cars, for some reason it seemed like something that you would transition from fully manual to fully automatic in one big leap. Now I see that the transition will be gradual, in stages. I remember when cruise control came out. Some of the early versions would let the speed fluctuation quite a bit. Now they do a fairly good job of keeping you at constant speed. When it was first invented, it was an expensive extra and rare. Now it seems weird if a car does not have it.

I think things that make driving more automatic and less human-controlled will be sold to the public as way to make a drive safer and more leisurely. People used to balk at the idea of being in a car and not driving it, objecting to the loss of control and to the lack of fun. I think as these things get nearer to reality, people get enthusiastic about them and demand skyrockets if the innovations are seen as cool. Another benefit to automated driving is the thought that this may make clogged city drives less congested. Studies of traffic jams have concluded that they are started by small numbers of individuals and aggravated by the way most drivers react to the problem. If cars were automated and could communicate through a transportation network, they could coordinate their speeds and following distances in order to keep traffic moving smoothly. At best they could prevent accidents, which is the main thing that will snarl a commute into a standstill.

Overall, manual control will never go away completely, and I would have to say that I have evolved to the point where I am looking forward to it. I would love to nap during a long trip or read the paper during a busy commute. As driving is currently off limits to the very young and the aged and infirm, computer controlled cars will open up travel possibilities for people that are currently locked out of the driving arena.