My new car thinks I’m an idiot.
Through a constant series of beeps, flashes, and messages, it badgers me in a manner that’s a cross between an unrepentant mansplainer and passive-aggressive nanny.
It comes with all sorts of ways to protect me from being, well, an idiot. It has a “lane sway warning” in case I’m dozing off. It blocks searching for a new Sirius radio station while driving — presumably to prevent distracted driving. (All while displaying postage stamp-sized album cover images of the music being played.)
“Lane departure!” it warns if I swerve six inches over the center line of a country road to avoid hitting a bicyclist.
When the salesman started to explain how to work the headlights, he stopped midsentence to pronounce: “Just don’t touch it. The car already knows what to do.”
In short, my new car yearns to be a driverless car, kind of like those Waymo taxis, which will soon be rolled out in Philly. It deigns to have me as its owner; tolerates — nay, suffers — my ownership of it. I’m surprised the dealer didn’t require my SAT scores in order to buy it.
Take the day I tossed my yoga mat in the back seat after class, drove home, then spotted this yellow dashboard warning upon alighting: “Reminder, look in rear seat.”
This was puzzling, until I realized it was a safety feature designed to prevent drivers from absentmindedly leaving their baby (or pet) behind during a heat wave.
Well-intentioned, to be sure — yet an ineffectual mixture of condescending and vague. It merely hints at the problem, as if it is too polite to accuse someone of literal child endangerment. Better it should just come out and say, “Hey, don’t forget the baby, ya moron!”
Or better yet: “I got you here safely. Do you need me to parent for you, too?”
Whenever the warning flashes, I find myself muttering, “Calm down — it’s a yoga mat.”
My friend’s Mercedes claims it can detect if she’s “fatigued,” barking a suggestion to take a break, and even flashing an image of a coffee cup. (Is Mercedes in cahoots with Big Coffee?)
When the outdoor temperature hits 37 degrees, the dashboard flashes a little orange icon that looks like the Imperial fighter plane from Star Wars. It’s to warn me about possible ice — and functions even in bone-dry weather.
This safety system — which I alternately sense as being either male or female — doesn’t seem to grasp that I just want to run errands, not pilot the Starship Enterprise.
Fed up with its bewildering collection of multicolored dashboard symbols, I finally decided to read the instruction manual.
Correction: Manuals. This car comes with three, and like the Harry Potter novels, each one is longer than the last.
Here I learned the trademarked “Eyesight” driver assistance technology will detect pedestrians … unless they’re carrying an umbrella. Its disclaimer says it can also get confused by: ditches, fog, dirt, dust, strong sunlight, motorcycles, bicycles, animals, rain, and windshield washer fluid.
The car has automatic braking, should you fail to notice that the car ahead of you has stopped. That feature, along with the rear-seat warning, has triggered the ire of Senate Republicans, who announced hearings on whether such safety features are worth the added cost.
It also has keyless entry, using just a fob, whose presence the car can sense even when it’s in my purse or pocket.
Last November, I was a volunteer poll worker on Election Day, which required that I depart in darkness to arrive at my polling place by 5 a.m. When I gathered my belongings to go inside, I couldn’t find my keys. I figured they had to be in the car, because otherwise the car wouldn’t run, right?
I spent the morning searching my purse and backpack. No keys. I spent my lunch break rummaging around in the car to see if they’d fallen between or under the seats. Nope.
I tried to start the car, on the premise that if the keys were somewhere in the car, it would start. It didn’t.
I panicked. Since I was the poll worker assigned to bring the all-important USB stick containing our district’s voting tallies to the town clerk, it was vital that I depart as soon as possible once the polls closed. I shuddered at the prospect of going viral, with CNN announcing, “New Jersey’s machine vote tally is now final — with the exception of a single missing district.”
Luckily, my husband brought over my spare keys. When the polls closed, I dropped off the voting equipment, then went to a music rehearsal. At its conclusion, as I leaned down to load my music bag into the back seat, I spotted something on the vehicle’s roof: my keys, nestled snugly against the luggage rack.
Yes, I had driven over five miles, up proverbial hill and dale, with the key fob atop my car.
And this know-it-all car, which can sense I’ve veered a centimeter across a lane line and barely tolerates my presence, never realized it.
Hey, Mr./Ms. Smarty-Pants: Who’s the idiot now?
Kathleen O’Brien is a retired newspaper columnist who lives with her know-it-all car in northwest New Jersey.
