I’m a commuter.
This is my first job where I had to drive more than 10 minutes to get there. My 30-minute commute now isn’t too much. My wife drives about 45 minutes each way to get to work.
Traffic can be strange, though. Vehicles move in packs. Others drive in formation across all three lanes like they’re the Blue Angels. Swoopers zip through heavy traffic while plodders slow it down.
It helped to realize I’m not dealing with human beings out there.
Look at a person who is fully engaged in driving.
Physically, the body’s not doing much. It is seated comfortably. Hands and arms move some to turn the steering wheel and operate controls. Head and eyes move a bit. The legs are still, except for the right foot on the pedal. If on cruise control, the legs don’t move at all.
The mind, however, is moving at 70 mph, looking for openings in traffic, maneuvering around curves and obstacles, probably watching for police.
It has disconnected itself from the body and placed itself in the car.
It doesn’t calculate how many degrees to rotate the wheel or how many inches to depress the gas pedal. It justs turns the car and speeds up.
This doesn’t come naturally.
I remember learning how to drive, and how much I had to concentrate on the controls.
I knew I had to rotate the wheel to make a turn, but then I found out I had to rotate it all the way back to straighten out. I knew I had to press on the brake to stop, but then I found out that I had to lift up on the pedal as the car came to a stop or else it would lean forward and jerk back.
None of this takes any thought now.
Popular in Japanese science fiction is the ‘mech,? a human-shaped, giant-size machine, cybernetically controlled by a pilot usually in the ‘head,? and various weapons on its arms, shoulders, and back.
Once strapped into the two tons of steel, plastic, and glass of a car, we can move faster than 70 mph, with the power of 124 horses, metal skin, enhanced sight and hearing (with mirrors and the radio).
We are more than human ? we’re ‘drivers.? Man and machine, a hybrid, a ‘mech.?
We are cyborgs.
Most cyborgs are perfectly content to mind their own business and drive safely, but some act as viciously as any Terminator or Borg, especially when cut off in traffic.
‘Road rage? incidents can and should be considered ‘fights,? because that’s what they are. The cyborgs involved are just as pumped up as they would be if they were facing each other in a boxing ring.
Boxing would be preferable. A road fight is more like dueling in a crowded bar using hand grenades.
I just saw a survey that drivers with kids are 14 percent more likely to get into road fights.
That’s sad. Would these parents dump their kid out of a stroller and start swinging it at someone who stepped in front of them at the grocery store? They shouldn’t do it just because they strapped on an SUV.
Merry Christmas, especially to family, friends, readers, and all my fellow cyborgs.