The past 20 years has brought significant refinement of the whole braking process. Disc brakes avoid the fading and susceptibility to wet weather for which drum brakes were notorious. Anti-lock brakes made it possible for the driver to control the direction the vehicle travels while under heavy braking and is especially useful in wet or icy conditions. Electronic brake distribution prevents individual wheels from locking and maintains proper brake bias whether the vehicle is lightly or heavily loaded. One of the latest innovations, Brake Assist(tm) actually senses, from the speed with which the brake pedal is hit, the driver making a panic stop and applies the brakes at their maximum under these conditions. While all of these innovations and applications of technology are helpful, they don't remove the responsibility for safe driving from the driver. But wait, that may soon be next.
Several car companies and automotive electronics suppliers are working on radar-guided braking systems that automatically apply the car's brakes if the system senses a collision is imminent. Proponents of such a system point to how useful the system would be in fog or other low-visibility conditions or in situations where an inattentive driver wasn't paying attention to the road in front of him/her.
Am I the only one who sees a danger in such a system? If drivers now are using their brakes only to stop at the last minute, will drivers in such vehicles never use their brakes? Will they instead roar up to a line of traffic with their foot flat on the gas and then, ear glued to a cell phone, count on the radar-controlled braking system to bring them to a stop at the last possible instant?
Braking behavior is, of course, only one symptom of a greater problem that pop psychologists and radio talk show hosts like to call "road rage." If you keep putting rats into a cage, eventually, at some critical number, they become aggressive toward one another. Our roads have become so crowded that this aggressive behavior can be seen almost daily. Drivers push and shove, cutting each other off, working to gain two or three car lengths so they can arrive a few seconds earlier. Rudeness is expected, and drivers do all they can to meet expectations.
I spend a fair amount of the summer driving my truck and trailer to vintage racing meets all over the country. When you are towing a large, enclosed trailer, you often must count on the kindness of strangers when you are merging onto a freeway or passing a long line of slow-moving trucks. It used to be everyone on the road was willing to accept a certain give and take so that traffic could flow smoothly. Now, most drivers seem to be long on take and preciously short on give. Few drivers seem to think about what happens behind them when they pull directly in front of the path of a 10,000-lb truck-and-trailer combination and then brake hard for the line of stopped traffic or for an upcoming off-ramp.
Sometimes you can't even win when you are trying to do the right thing. Driving home from the Pittsburgh Grand Prix, I was towing my trailer along the interstate highway. As an on-ramp approached, I noticed a car was merging onto the road. I checked my mirrors, signaled my intention and moved to the left lane to allow the merging car a clean shot at the right lane. After passing the car, I noticed some fast-moving traffic approaching in the left lane and, checking my mirror, saw that the merged car was sufficiently behind me to move back to the right lane. I signaled and did so. Seconds later, the driver of the car that had merged went roaring past me in the left lane as his companion made obscene gestures with her hand and mouthed obscenities to me. This bothered me. I had made room for them on the highway by moving my rig out of their way, and then when I wanted to move back into my original lane to resume my journey, they were pissed off at me because I was slowing them down. All take, no give.
Even leisurely drives can be graphic demonstrations of the end of courteous behavior on the highway. Most people who own old cars like to take them out and exercise them from time to time. By their nature, old cars are often slower and less maneuverable than modern machines. It used to be that people would smile and children would wave as you motored along in your ancient machine. But, in growing numbers, the person who passes you is more likely to make an obscene gesture for taking up a spot on the road and getting in the way of their busy schedule. One such encounter during a drive can put off the whole rest of your day.
Maybe Martin Swig is right. Maybe that bit of innovative technology known as the disc brake was the beginning of the end. Technology has a way of doing that. One of the most terrifying bits of wartime technology was the horse's stirrup, developed sometime during the 11th century. Suddenly, mounted soldiers could fight from their horses, swinging their swords with their hands and controlling their horses with the stirrups. It was a devastating weapon. It seemed so simple, it was progress and promised to make riding better and safer, yet it remained one of the most crucial weapons of warfare until the beginning of the 20th century. By making our cars better and safer, maybe we are inadvertently making mankind less so.