America is slowing down. How long before it stops entirely?
Literally stops?
A reader who is a commercial driver wrote to tell me about how his work vehicle is monitored and controlled via the saaaaaaaaafety tech that is coming soon to your garage and may already be there, just waiting to be fully enabled.
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His work van “fusses” at him for”hard cornering, idling too long, hard acceleration and hard braking.” And – of course – for not wearing his seatbelt, even for a moment.
It actually does more than “fuss” at him.
It narcs him out to his employer for accelerating or braking or cornering in a manner considered by the onboard nanny to be too “hard” for its tastes. Which means, paralytically hypercautious. Imagine a paranoid 95-year-old with trifocals, encoded and embedded in your vehicle.
My reader describes “weekly beratings” by the fleet manager of his company about drivers’ “scores” – which are calculated based upon the driver’s mindless adherence to every traffic law and the onboard nanny’s programming parameters regarding the quickness of his vehicle’s movements.
Or rather, their lack.
The slower, the better – ipso facto.
And so, the drivers do. Slow down. What choice do they have? The onboard granny nanny is the mobile equivalent of the cube farm Human Resources frau who will have your job if her always-cocked ear should hear an off-color comment or even an innocent malaprop – the malaprop defined by the triggered aggrieved. One must walk on eggshells at work – and drive as though there were an egg under the accelerator (and brake) pedal while working.
For the same reason.
