There could be a scale of human
inventions, sorted by size and simplicity. Where on this scale will
you find the most common vehicle in the western world?
The Small, The Big...
On the small end of the mechanical
scale, we have examples like wrist watches, light bulbs, and pens.
These are simple enough that we can use
them every day without effort, and also small enough to be replaced
without much care if one stops working. If a pen that I was writing
with ran dry, it would be more likely that I would reach for a new
pen, and less likely that I would burst into tears.
On the large end of the mechanical
scale, we have machines which construct skyscrapers, dig tunnels
through the earth, and look good in James Bond movies.
Huge apparitions that create, change,
or destroy vast amounts of raw material at a time are seldom handled
by a single person. When the machine is bigger than us, we usually
require training to handle it, we often feel a bit nervous the first
time we are given control, and we always imagine how big the mistakes
could be if we do something wrong.
We feel that there is a lot of power in
these turbines and rockets, but it gives us an appropriate feeling of
responsibility. The larger machines are complicated enough that we
prepare ourselves before using them, and big enough that we would
rather repair than replace them.
...And the Cars
In the middle of this scale is the
everyday car owned by Mr. Average.
Cars are complicated to begin with, so
we need to learn how to use them and earn a license. They are also
big enough that we are aware of how much they cost, and try to avoid
even needing to repair them unless it is really necessary.
But after using them for years, we
become very familiar with the controls, and they seem simpler, so we
pay less and less attention to using them carefully. Familiarity also
makes them seem smaller, and we come to think of them less like
spaceships and more like go-karts. I don't think it helps that as you
upgrade through cars, engine power typcially increases more than
physical body size.
What Happens Next?
This wouldn't be a bad thing except
that on the entire scale of small to large inventions, cars affect
peoples lives in significant ways more regularly. Pens and staplers
haven't often been known to kill people, and the safety precautions
taken around construction sites means that even though serious
accidents are possible, they are often avoided. Cars sit in the grey
area, the middle, where you can get away with being careless if
you're lucky, but huge damage can be done if you're not.
Perhaps cars become like of an
extension of ourselves after we have been driving them for years,
like another limb that you use. But unlike our natural limbs, we
don't really have as much control over cars as we think we do.
Consumers like to feel safe, so cars
are currently designed to give us a feeling of control over the
thousand or more components that have been put together. But with so
much padding and automated mechanics between ourselves and the
tarmac, we can't feel how the whole car is really doing. We have to
resort to a single sense, our vision, which needs to be monitoring
the front windscreen, the speedometer and three mirrors to receive as
much information as possible about the world outside the wheel.
I think that car makers have taken so
much fear out of drivers that they have decreased our sense of
needing to handle the machine responsibly and carefully.
Image source: http://www.fastcompany.com/1703701/crash-test-dummies-for-chemical-warfare
