At What Cost

I’ve been negligent in chronicling my automotive rants lately, having gotten sucked into that swirling vortex that is daily-living.

Additionally, there is a new phenomenon in play that baffles me and commands my attention. In a country fraught with racial tensions, economic woes and (ugh) political campaigns we now seem to market shootings as if they were reality TV. Not to be outshined by these horrible news-events turned entertainment, our political leadership, incumbent and prospective, use the opportunity of human tragedy to posture and push their agenda. I find the rancor repugnant. I still want to believe America is better than all this, that she has value other than what self-advancement we can squeeze out of divisiveness…. Maybe that day is done, so let’s just have Hillary and The Donald duke it out on American Ninja Warrior. It’s what we want anyway.

On May 7 Joshua Brown lost his life as his Tesla, at full highway speed, drove under a tractor semi-trailer pulling across the road. Brown was operating the vehicle in “autopilot” mode, which is a technological pit-stop before we hit full car automation. This technology allows the car to maintain lane, speed and brake as required during highway cruise. NHTSA and Tesla both still have this incident on the half-shell, but it has been assumed the car didn’t brake itself as it didn’t recognize the light colored trailer against the bright sky. To little contrast for it to differentiate the threat.

Tesla reiterates that that the driver is ultimately responsible for the car’s (or technology’s) usage. Yes, and as a manager I am responsible for the performance of my assigned employees. This doesn’t mean I think out every move they make or control every event of their day. I “trust” that they understand their tasks and that they will involve me if they don’t. I put someone in place to perform a task, so I let them perform it. Likely regardless of what legal releases Mr. Brown signed at the dealership, this was his understanding of his car’s technology as well. He trusted it would do what it was designed to do.

Back to the cost: So here we have a situation where an individual mistakenly entrusted a technology with a critical task to the loss of his own life. By his reasoning and past experience, the car would do what it had to do, go down the road and leave him out of the mix. NHTSA’s most recent published records are 2014 data, but in that year 32,675 people lost their life in automotive accidents. About 90 funerals a day. By way of contrast, in 2013 (CDC’s latest stats), 11,208 people lost their lives due to firearms in our 50 states; this data includes malicious intent, accidental and defensive loss of life.

 And here’s the rub; Automotive or firearm causes, these people lost their lives; often through no fault of their own, or sometimes due to poor choices… sometimes just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  I suspect a husband or wife, mother or father, son or daughter feels no less grief regardless of the cause of their loved one’s death. The tears don’t suddenly evaporate as they exclaim “oh, it was only a car”! Automotive deaths don’t drive TV ratings or make viable campaign fodder I guess.

Automated cars will bone up their act one day, getting more proactive, less prone to failure and “safer”. But regardless how automated and “safe” they get, there will still be deaths. People will use them; with all the poorly informed decisions that go along with personhood. We may not care for the answer, but ultimately Tesla is right, we alone are responsible for how we use the technology. So regardless of the technology, let’s use it responsibly.

© 2016 D.W. Williams 

The Accident

It was only recently that my college-age son got plowed into in an intersection a few blocks from our house. He was on his way to his (very) part-time job that he maintains to keep gas in his car and change in his pocket while in school. He had the right of way (eyewitnesses said for a solid 10-12 seconds) and the other driver clearly blew a very-red light. My son’s car got hit on the right front which spun him like a top; the impact bent the frame and destroyed the front clip of his beloved 25 year old Mazda Piñata (err… Miata). But he has quick reflexes and saw it coming, so he did some evasive maneuvering. I am satisfied based on what I saw at the scene that if my son hadn’t reacted quickly he would have been in the hospital.

The radiator was destroyed on my son’s car, so I overheard some of the police report as I showed up with my trusty log-chain to help him pull the sorry wreck home. I understand that the other driver had been swerving as he drove towards the intersection and that after the collision he stopped long enough to get out and look at the damage he caused. He then got back in his mangled car and drove away. Whether the guy was drunk or simply looking at his phone is a mystery to any of us. What isn’t a mystery is that he hit and ran. A couple of ladies sitting at the (red) light got pictures of him getting out of his car and also of his license plate, so it is hopeful that the police can track him down.

Likely this guy was one of those who couldn’t afford insurance and chose to run because he had none. Who knows; he might have even had his license pulled because of priors without insurance. Uninsured motorists seem more and more commonplace in urban areas. I suspect that the issue will continue to grow; rent, utilities and groceries continue to ratchet up in cost, but wages don’t. Unfortunately, just because you can’t afford what it takes to maintain a driving privilege doesn’t mean you can get along without it.  

The urban financial cycle is vicious and unforgiving. Lower income folks have no ability to find employment other than what is within walking distance or along transit routes. These jobs often provide little, either in benefits or salary. They often can’t afford to drive, but need to because there are no decent jobs, grocery stores or department stores close to where they live. These areas can’t support this infrastructure as crime is inevitably high and insurance (there’s that word again) for a store owner is unaffordable due to frequent theft and robberies. Busses? Sure, it’s feasible to carve 2½ hours out for multiple rides and transfers to accommodate a ½hr grocery run. But which of us would see that as a real option?

Solutions are few and far between. Public transit meets only some needs. Jobs above minimum wage typically require education that many can’t afford and are often available only in areas that urbanites can’t access without personal transportation. And as demonstrated recently, even a 4-year degree offers little additional hope of securing a reasonable job. Many grads today find themselves working at the McDonalds up the street because it’s all that was available. (Based on my recent search I can testify that many companies are looking for 25 year-olds with 30 years of work experience, master degrees and willingness to work for $12/hr.)

And so this installment of my blog offers no solutions, only questions. My son had his life put off kilter by this accident, but he got out of it uninjured and is already seeing this as an opportunity to upgrade his rolling-stock. And no- he isn’t collecting against insurance as he only carried liability on the Piñata. The other guy? Who really knows?  If the City hunts him down to prosecute, it’s kind of a blood-out-of-a-turnip deal…  Yes, his behavior was wrong and needs to change. But I’m not sure it does anyone any good to cripple him that much more by taking away what he already doesn’t have to guarantee he can’t get set straight.

© 2016 D.W. Williams 

Put it down and drive!

During my commute home the other day I saw another all too common episode of lunacy behind the wheel. My commute is on urban highway, so I see a lot of indecision and apparently dysfunctional self-preservation instinct. In fact, in my brief 7-mile drive it is rare that I see fewer than 3-4 daily incidents of either myself or someone in front of me falling victim to an unconscious motorist. Un-signaled close-call lane changes, inexplicable braking (hallucinations, or maybe flashbacks) and extreme tailgating. And no, that’s not a new reality show.

On that particular day traffic was heavy, but folks weren’t generally being real aggressive. I usually drive close to the speed limit because I don’t want to accumulate points. I have a CDL and also my teen years are sadly long gone. Because of that tactic I have lots of opportunity to observe people as they pass me going their otherwise regionally acceptable 70mph in a 55 (yes, really). I had seen this car approaching in my left side mirror, but it never materialized in my side window. A bit later it was dropping back into my mirror view again, and then pulling forward once more and eventually flanking me.

After more of this back and forth passing game I noted that the young woman operating the car was spending way more time looking down at her lap than the road in front of her. She was oblivious to the cars stacking up behind her or her lack of speed control, intent on whatever the tiny screen was showing her instead. Typically I had only seen this level of smart-phone induced coma at traffic lights. You know the deal; the light is green 8-10 seconds before these people get a clue and start to move. And how dare we interrupt their reverie, if we object.

So, my question; what monster have we unleashed with our newfangled gadgetry? Just because cars are smarter than they used to be, should we be stupider? Having worked in fleet for quite a while, I’ve had lots of opportunity to interview those that have been in wrecks. Well over 90% of those discussions revealed that some form of inattention was the root cause, either on the part of the operator I was talking to or the other party involved. Sometimes both, the “I didn’t see him coming” syndrome.

And that is the point I drill down to. If you don’t watch the road, how can you possibly react quickly and decisively to the traffic maneuvers of someone else that isn’t paying attention either? Should all cars just have those wrap-around bump-cages like recreational go-karts at the track, or would waiting 5-10 minutes to return a text or stare at your Facebook feed really kill you? Certainly not waiting can kill you, or someone else. How about we just put the phones down so we all get home alive tonight. Simple enough.  

© 2016 D.W. Williams 

Helpful Auto Technology Vs. Fluff

OK, just so there is no misunderstanding here let me make a point up front. My automotive experience started in the days of crank-down windows and manually adjusted mirrors. Cars I routinely drove might have had A/C (likely didn’t work), and if domestic, power steering and power brakes. Really not much else. My trucks? Scratch the A/C off the list; it would have had three pedals, a wheel, a turn signal stalk, a shift lever and two knobs (lights and wipers). If it was real upscale, it might have had an AM radio and floor mats too!

No, I’m not an antique of a human being. My transportation pursuits didn’t start in the primordial ooze of the auto industry. But it did start with whatever equipment I could afford at that time, so as a young driver I was pretty much relegated to 8-12 year old vehicles; vehicles that predated the more recent bells and whistles of that time.

By then power windows, power mirrors, power seats and AM/FM cassettes were often ordered on most American cars. But cash-strapped as I was I didn’t have access to these indulgences. Quite frankly I didn’t really desire them. I had no perception of a need they could satisfy, so the options didn’t mean anything to me.

Memory lane? Sort of, but with a point. As has usually been the case in my career my current issued work vehicle is newer than the wheels I drive personally. This time around the org managed to produce a lower mile Chevy that worked just fine, a little sedan that had been turned in by another department. Air, tilt, cruise AM/FM/CD; things that are now common on the most basic of cars.

Winter is finally sagging into the lower Midwest, and with its coming, frost on the windshield and frozen puddles in the street are commonplace. Just the other day I happened to be in-route to another location before the sun had peeked over the hill to do any of its fine work stirring up molecules and building heat. At some point in that drive I went across an ice-patch, and in this case it was on a mild hill, so the tires slipped a little. No surprises - saw it coming.

The car apparently didn’t assume that I could distinguish what had happened though. An amber warning light lit up on the dash, flashed and soon after a message scrolls across the instrument cluster proclaiming “slick pavement”. Hmmmm. Really? I had assumed the slight engine-flair and tug on the steering wheel was due to a mechanical failure or maybe a low tire… It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with it being 25 degrees out and the fact I was crossing a shiny spot on the pavement at that time.

Maybe I shouldn’t chide whoever engineered this thing. Maybe there are really people out there who don’t understand what freezing temperatures, shiny pavement, a flaring engine and a tug at the wheel means. But If these people are driving around here this winter, they need to do us all a favor; either move to Arizona or go home immediately and put their cars in the garage. They can bring them back out in April when they will endanger us all less.

After I parked the work car that evening I jumped into my low mile 18 year old beater VW Golf and threaded my way home. It’s ugly, but the price was right, it runs well and doesn’t have any rust. I only drive 7or so miles to work, so it meets my needs. Did I mention it has manual crank-down windows and manual mirrors. Oh, and it does have a power sunroof. I appreciated that feature this last summer because the A/C doesn’t work.     

© 2015 D.W. Williams 

Diesel anyone?

The recent corporate stumble by Volkswagen into the abyss of bad press gives me pause. As you have probably heard through 100 other sources (so I won’t belabor the point other than mention it as background), Volkswagen was caught in a type of software hijinks, programming turbo-diesel engine management software in such a way that it switched into a more eco-friendly mode when it recognized the load cycle to be typical of an EPA treadmill. IE: It put the engine on its best behavior when the feds were watching.

So what concerns me about this whole deal? VW has had a long history of marketing diesels successfully. In Europe the diesel has really become the main viable option to hyper-tiny engines in family sedans as they will typically do more work on less fuel than gasoline engine. VW has been hammering away at that market consistently since the 1970’s. They know their stuff on diesel engines.  

Volkswagen announced that it would pursue electric vehicle technologies after the firestorm let down a little. Huh? You see, Volkswagen AG has access to the best and the brightest in automotive engineering. Owning such marques and Audi, Porsche, Bugatti, Ducati and Lamborghini. These are sharp guys, and they can’t make a diesel run clean without particulate filters and urea injection? Uhmmmm, what I end up saying to myself is “Self, if Volkswagen can’t make a diesel perform up to current emission standards without these exhaust after-treatment devices, it can’t be done”.

These mentioned devices are effective, but also big, bulky and heavy, and key to Volkswagens whole (falsified) market ploy was the ability to run clean without them. All these technologies can be and are used on trucks (big and small) but they require real-estate that passenger cars don’t have, suck a lot of power and generate a lot of heat. Not stuff you want to engineer around if you are designing for the economy or performance car market segments.

So in effect what I believe we’ve just seen is the death of the diesel in domestic automobiles. This is a shame on many levels. It is a long-lived technology almost as old as the internal combustion engine itself. As the fuel is a light oil, it burns longer and hotter than lighter distillates (gasoline) allowing more push to be harnessed every time the piston goes down the bore on a power stroke. Small engines/big torque and high economy. And this is exactly why this technology still excels in trucks and off-road equipment – for now.

I wonder how long before we legislate diesels out of existence there too?

   

© 2015 D.W. Williams 

Auto Technology

The local paper ran a story yesterday on some data that was gathered by JD Power regarding technology in cars; what technology we are using and how we use it. JD Power stated, go figure, that we are often paying for technology in cars that we don’t use; citing that at least 20% of purchasers use less than ½ of the technology features available in the vehicle.

JD Power also drew a conclusion out of this study, that the technology features that are most used in cars are those that must be built into the cars for them to operate. Makes sense: you wouldn’t expect your smart-phone to be your backup sensor or adaptive cruise control. But on the other hand who of us hasn’t used our smartphones for maps or directions? The study also noted that if a purchaser wasn’t given a walk-through of the features by the delivering dealer, they were much less likely to use them. Presumably either unable or unwilling to take the time to learn how to use them.

In this same article manufacturers quipped that they have been giving consumers what they wanted. Really? Having been in automotive product focus groups before I’ve seen how the scripts run…. “Would you prefer your ham sandwich be topped with mayo or mustard”? Hold the train. When did I say I wanted a ham sandwich in the first place? These groups seem formed to document reassuring feedback on narrow topics rather than truly probe consumer desires.

From all the info in this study I draw my own conclusion, which is: as a consumer, once you have a technology available to you which meets your needs, you won’t really go out of your way looking for another solution. While necessity may no longer be the mother of invention, it remains the mother of adoption

However if you are in automotive product engineering, marketing or “Infotainment” development, that is not a pill you can readily swallow. You are in a position where you have to come up with newer, better and more all the time. Company profits and your job depend on this. And if you come up with something which gathers dust rather than market interest, it seems you have the choice of either scrapping the idea or figuring out a way to sell the consumer on it. I am afraid marketing departments spend much of their time on the second approach.

And there you have it. Consumers want transportation and safety, but a manufacturer’s principal concern is profits. You’ll get your safety, but the more doodads they can load a product down with the more they can sell it for. So you’ll get your hands-free blue tooth phone interface, but you are going to get it with a myriad of other bells and whistles that you will never use. 

   

© 2015 D.W. Williams 

The New Job

At some point in our careers each of us takes on a new job, either by choice or compulsion.  In my own case it had been 18 years since I had experienced the rapid-fire revelations that result from being thrust into a new situation with new rules, new expectations and new people. It is really the new people part of that equation which causes most established professionals the most retrospection.

By the time you are 25+ years into your career, assuming you transition into another position in the same industry, you really do know what you are doing. Oh, there are indeed small nuances that change, and sometimes with big ramifications, but by and large you’ve been around the block enough times to weed through the processes and differentiate the crucial from the impertinent.

Not so much with people.

People are dynamic, with fluid needs and a litany of concerns to either address or outright avoid. The problem is that it isn’t always apparent what you are dealing with until the crank gets turned to the “POP - goes the weasel” part of the tune, and by then it’s out of the box; good, bad or ugly, you are dealing with it now.

Inadvertent damage-control aside, a new job is also refreshing. Probably because as the players change, the tensions change too. In fact, based on some decompression I went through (Don’t come up to fast, you’ll get the bends!) I can honestly say that I didn’t really know what type of preoccupations wrestled for my attention until they weren’t there anymore. Like bass on crankbait, the thoughts came.

Once I cut-bait it was kind of refreshing. It took some time sure. I guess that is reasonable since about 2 decades had passed. But maybe, just maybe, if I remain determined about my own direction, controlling what I can and disregarding the rest…..

Ask me in another 20 years.  

© 2015 D.W. Williams