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Connor Jackson Prof. Pratt English 1102 25 March 2014 Automobiles: The Next Generation For the last century, automobiles have been a staple to not only American society, but to every industrialized society to date. Therefore, automotive travel in day-to-day cases is the most common and efficient way to get from destination A to destination B in the least amount out time. This has been a normal aspect of peoples lives for such a prolonged amount of time that automobiles existence and progression have become transparent to most peoples daily routines. One of the most overlooked aspects of this staple is simply the way we drive them. The norm of 2 or 3 pedals, a steering wheel, a gas engine paired with a transmission has been close to the same mapped setup ever since the conception of the first automobile. We learn to drive through this as a teenager and it has always been the standard way to drive a motor vehicle. With current patterns of technological advancement however; will this be the way we drive for much longer and are these advancements of driver aids making the task of a driver more trivial and thus decreasing overall skill and making driving more dangerous over time? How can the driving experience be preserved through to the next generation of automobiles? I, like many other teenagers counted down the days till I could get my license. Taking the test I was in a world of cold sweats and shaky hands fearing that I would fail the test and never be able to drive a car. Admittedly, my thought process was befuddled due to my nervousness but I managed to earn my license and what I saw as a ticket to the open road. Growing up I never

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had video games or big neighborhood to run around in and I went to a small private school. Safe to say boredom was a big aspect of my childhood. I started to read old boxes upon boxes of Car and Driver and other various automotive magazines which initiated my interest in automobiles at a young age. I never got to work on any so riding in a car was really the only interaction I ever received with automobiles outside of the magazine pages. I grew to appreciate my time driving around with father in the various cars he had when I was a child. This was the only car experience I got so Ive always showed a reverence to the driving experience. Now that technology has shown a shift and started to make more comprehensive driving aids and computerized systems in cars, Im concerned the driving experience that means so much to me, is becoming outdated and obsolete. A study conducted by Transportation Research was created to test the very effectiveness of what were called smart driving systems. They tested two systems against a control in urban and extra urban driving environments. Tests confirmed what is to be expected. The EID system had higher positive effect on driving patterns and the DB system was close behind. The control, a person driving with no assists and only their skill came in last for highest overall faults in driving patterns (Birrell, 484-493). Driver assists have been scientifically proven to be beneficial to safety and thus are becoming more and more implemented into new models of automobiles. As odd as it may seem to juxtapose driver aids and increased danger, what happens when these assists fail to correct a situation on the road? Learning to drive on a 1997 Dodge Dakota 5.2L V8 truck allowed me to learn car control from early on. Having a rear wheel drive truck with no weight on the rear wheels and no autobraking system leads the risk of spinning out easily with any water on the road. The time I messed up and spun off the road was the first and last time I spun off the road. I learned how to

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cope with the situations that newer car technology would have fixed for me. My close friend however had not learned the same skills I had gained through experience. He had a newer car with Traction Control as a part of his auto-braking system which corrects traction through a computerized system. His father had recently driven the car and turned off the traction control without realizing. On a drive to the gym I was sitting in the passenger seat when we took a hairpin turn per usual on the drive there. With the Traction Control off the rear began to fishtail and we spun out and slammed into a large wood fence slamming my side of the car into the fence damaging the front bumper, quarter panel and shattering all the glass on one side of the car. Luckily neither of us were injured but it hit me, quite literally, that the implication that these driver aids have on driving and if they fail, can be extremely dangerous. Keith Barry of Wired magazine in reference to the high reliability of driver aids wisely states Therein lies the problem. We come to count on our cars to keep us out of trouble, even in situations where the technology isnt designed to (Barry, Too Much Safety Could Make Drivers Less Safe). The next wave of cars in production will have aids such as Attention assist systems, collision-sensing braking preloading and adaptive cruise control. All of these devices help in preemptive avoidance of object collisions. These can replace the need for drivers to control certain aspects of the car while driving. The problem occurs when a situation presents itself in which the driver assumes the assists will self-correct to that situation but the assist arent designed to adjust to that degree of situation. The driver therefore doesnt know how to react and ends up in a dangerous and potentially life threatening position. At what point will these driver aids and assists replace conventional driving settings. Teenagers learning to drive in 20 years may have a completely different experience in everything from our highway systems to the standard acceleration pedal and brake pedal. If there is a

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technology that can be utilized in automobiles that can brake ones car automatically according to the car or road ahead, who is to say that the technology cant replace the need for a user to operate the brake pedal at all? The same principle applies to acceleration. What about this technology will hold it back from replacing any human control? If everything was automated in every car technology could have the potential to eliminate almost all collisions. This sounds positive to most people.

Google has been a leader in the progression of the autonomous car movement. Above is a Lexus Google car with a transmitter connected to the roof. Cars driven on satellite imaging through GPS have made massive progress just in the past few years. Many claim that these computer driven cars are better drivers than humans in city traffic. They can see everything and analyze more aspects at once than a human can. For someone who doesnt like the fact that there are these types of cars out there, I admit to the fact that this technology is working. Trust in the automated systems is a must however as you are putting your life in the cars hands every time you go for a ride. Weve improved our software so it can detect hundreds of distinct objects simultaneouslypedestrians, buses, a stop sign held up by a crossing guard, or a cyclist making gestures that indicate a possible turn. A self-driving vehicle can pay attention to all of these things in a way that a human physically cantand it never gets tired or distracted.(Google Car Developer).

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Google is not the only company that is making headway with this technology. Almost all major car companies have addressed the fact that this new wave of self-driven cars is up and coming and they all have made efforts to develop their own software. BMW made a 3-series sedan learn a race track through GPS memory and then have the car take the course on full speed and the car made a respectable time for the track. The versatility that will come from the technology is immense and the more it is tested in actual conditions the more the technology will progress. Thus at a certain point, most likely in the near future the automated car will be a common presence on the road. The state of California has made it legal to have these cars on the road running tests as long as there is a person able to control the car if something goes wrong. (CADMV, 2014) There lies the main issue that I see with this technology. Are you supposed to trust this car? Where will the concern for your own safety be neutralized to a point where you still need a human as driver backup? If there is a point where the majority of the cars on the road are autonomous and the technology is far advanced from the point it is now, how long will it take for the act of driving to be considered trivial and thus drowned out to a point where it isnt needed. The sport of driving will become obsolete and the ratio would alter so that a person driving a car like we do today will be as out of place as an autonomous car is on todays roads. Driving and the joy and skill that goes with it will be something of the past soon enough. As someone who absolutely loves the joy of driving a car, this is quite a threat to what I personally enjoy most about cars. Driving to me is freedom. A car and the open road is euphoric and there are many others who feel the same way as I do. To think that in the years to come technology will revoke that enjoyment, that bliss, is quite upsetting. The ultimate question of how to preserve this experience comes to mind.

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Manual transmission may be one of the key aspects when it comes to preservation of the driving experience. A car needs to be able to shift gears through the transmission to continue moving and in a car with a manual transmission the driver controls that mechanical process. Although automatic transmission cars certainly have their place in common driving and remain prominent in the U.S. car market, manuals should remain to be produced by manufactures and sold to customers. Having the control of some relatively small part of the car such as the clutch gives you a great deal of control over the cars actions. Electronics and computerized systems can do a great deal to aid driving but at heart cant override basic mechanical systems. The problem however, is that these types of automobiles are becoming rarer to find in new models. New double-clutch automated systems can produce faster acceleration times and a more graceful ride through smoother shifts thus pushing the manual transmission into extinction. Once these new changes in cars eliminate this option, I reiterate the same question, what is stopping the production of fully automated cars? My father and I went looking to test drive new cars about two years ago and went to multiple dealerships. He wanted a manual transmission car and would not settle for anything less. Many salesmen tried to convince him to sway towards the much more copious amounts of automatic cars they had on the lots but he was determined to find what he wanted. The local Acura dealership said they had zero manuals on the lot and you had to order them special online. The BMW lot next door had two manual transmissions and one was used. After finding the ONE manual transmission out of 100+ cars it had two flat tires and was covered pollen just from sitting in the lot for almost a full year without being sold. Most people dont want that type of driving experience and all bought cars loaded with technology.

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As long as options such as a manual transmission continue to be produced and sold in high enough quantity, the technological surge of automated driving and computerized driver systems wont fully override the driving experience we have become accustomed to in todays society. Prolonging driver control and having drivers learn how to properly control a car without system interference will help to increase safety and skill in drivers. Driving has become such a societal norm for most people that drowning it out as a whole will be a very big deal. It will change how the world is run. However, I believe that if doubt remains for automatized cars then there is a way to preserve the overall experience that is driving an automobile for the generations to come.

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Works Cited Ackerman, Evan. "Google's Autonomous Cars Are Smarter Than Ever at 700,000 Miles." - IEEE Spectrum. Google, 2014. Web. 30 Apr. 2014. Edwards, C. "Driven to Distraction [in-car Technology]." Electronic Systems and Software 5.2 (2007): 8. Print. Barry, Kieth. "Too Much Safety Could Make Drivers Less Safe | Autopia | WIRED." Wired.com. Conde Nast Digital, 25 July 0011. Web. 30 Apr. 2014. Birrell, Stewart. "Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behavior. Volume 14 Issue 6." Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behavior. Volume 14 Issue 6. 2011, Volume 14 ed., sec. 6: 484-93. Print. Murray, CJ. "Autonomous Cars Not Ready for Prime Time." British Library Serials. Design News, Apr. 2013. Web. 30 Apr. 2014. Google. Autonomous Google Car. 2014. California. DMV. "Autonomous Vehicles in California." Autonomous Vehicles in California. N.p., 2014. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.

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