Month: September 2023

You might think I’m a car guy. I just like cars. I’m probably talking to someone who prefers if cars drive themselves. If I am, I recommend browsing some other blog, because this is a 2-page essay of me rambling (complaining) about modern-day cars and how annoyingly easy and safe it is to drive them.

 

Like most of my eccentric characteristics, I inherited a passion for cars from my dad. As a young and impressionable child, I would sit next to my dad on the bed of the master bedroom and watch Motor Week and Top Gear. It was mesmerizing watching cars glide or flip through a moose test, the 0-60s on modded Ferraris, and I especially loved watching Top Gear because of the funny man with the funny British accent. He also had many car magazines I liked to borrow after he finished reading them: Road & Track, Automobile, MotorTrend; all car magazines I stopped reading once they focused on EVs.

Yes, this blog is also about slandering EVs and how I’d probably never own one, although I do acknowledge their inevitable dominance of the motor industry. Hopefully, it’ll be a good 40-50 years before then, and if there ever exists a law banning combustion engines, I’ll be the last man in America tearing through the streets with a gas-guzzling 9½ liter V12 vehicle (if I can afford one by then). What I’m getting at is that I developed a passion for cars and driving that is stronger than the average person, and I’d be expressing that in this essay.

All jokes aside, I think that gas-fueled cars and EVs both have their significance in the current iteration of car trends. I do have to admit though that although they are still in the works, EVs have an impressive inventory of features that make driving more convenient. In Teslas and more dominant EV manufacturers, you can even download the software that runs the car like an update on your computer or phone, which basically sets the car up for the future. As technology advances, there will be no doubt that they will be a safer and more accessible car for the average person. 

Meanwhile, Tesla can suck on that 2-hour charge time. And since the car is all-electric, good news; the car’s value depreciates faster, so you can waste more money once you realize the range decreases by 10% every year and you sell it for a superior internal combustion engine (ICE) car. In less developed areas of the world (meaning not Silicon Valley) electricity generation is primarily based on fossil fuels, so the carbon footprint associated with EVs is almost the same as ICE vehicles. At the moment, there’s no good reason to incentivize or purchase electric cars.

 

Shifting into another gripe of mine: cars vs modern-day vehicles. “What’s the difference?” You might ask. There’s some nuance to this question, as there isn’t true definity of when a car becomes a modern vehicle. I’d define it as–you drive cars, while modern-day vehicles practically drive themselves. A car doesn’t need to have a manual transmission for you to be driving it, but some features in new models are impractical and sometimes dangerous.

My family owns a 2023 Hybrid Honda CR-V, and I drove it 6 miles to Columbus, Ohio over spring break this year. One feature I particularly despise on this car is Lane Departure, which detects if you’re drifting away from the lane and yanks the wheel to correct the position. On I-65, a 2-lane highway with a speed limit of 70 mph, Lane Departure decided to activate, jerking the wheel towards the concrete barrier at 80 mph with luggage in the back of the car. Fortunately, I reacted quickly enough to counteract the system; otherwise, the situation would have been much worse. I haven’t driven that car since.

On the same trip to Indianapolis, the emergency brake system activated in the middle of a busy junction, even though I kept good spacing between the next car.in car commercials that demonstrate an SUV with emergency braking (usually Nissan or Cadillac) the driver, usually a parent, is busy fussing with a misbehaving child in the backseat when a pedestrian wearing headphones crosses the street without looking. The car brakes by itself, leaving everyone relieved. To me, it just seems like modern car commercials are promoting inattentive driving.

These new features have somewhat decreased the risk of driving and also have drastically decreased our attentiveness and cautiousness operating a 2 ton death machine. Every day, I spot someone preoccupied with looking at their phone or putting on makeup while driving. Even with overhead cameras, people still can’t park symmetrically or parallel park. This corresponds to today’s society, where everyone seems to have decreased attention spans. It’s particularly dangerous, and our driving instructors had to stress about defensive driving due to those who don’t understand the deadly risks on the road. It’s undeniable that manual transmission can solve this problem. Operating a third pedal (clutch)  and the gear shifter is more than enough to keep people attentive. These cars are already incentivized: They cost less money, have better gas mileage, and require less maintenance. Although these incentives are put into place, I feel that people are far too lazy to purchase and learn to use one.

 

The vast majority of people on the road are driving automatic transmission. Be mindful of yourself and others, and pay attention to the road. If you have some of these features in your car, I recommend turning them off, as they are impractical if you pay attention. Nevertheless, I hope that in the future manual transmissions will not become a rare and collectible item, as people like me want to preserve the freedom driving can bring.

I remember a time when I dug through my grandma’s house in China as a 4 year old. At the time, I could only speak Cantonese and was almost entirely illiterate in English. I discovered my uncle’s old room, and in the corner, a small shelf of his childhood collection of comic books. The first thing I picked out was a Doraemon comic book, a cartoon popular in Japan. I was fascinated by the images and the dialogue. When I returned to America, I checked out numerous comic books from the kid’s section at the Nichols library. Other than Doraemon, I picked out Pokemon and Calvin & Hobbes novels. Calvin and Hobbes was one of my favorites; I could relate to the wild imaginations of the young troublemaker. I would be taken on whatever adventures Calvin went with his imaginary tiger. When I partially learned English, I could only imagine what the dialogue was by interpreting it through the panels of the comic.

Looking back, I realize that the tiger wasn’t alive and was just a figment of Calvin’s imagination of his inanimate stuffed animal. It gives me a twist of melancholy, as a naive young me believed all of his trips to Mars were real. I realized why the book was so intriguing to me: the comic reflected my own wild imagination as a kid. I’d place myself in Calvin’s cardboard spaceship or on the slides at school wishing recess would never end. That’s why when I became fluent in English, my next main genres were science-fiction and fantasy. 

My first big series was The Maze Runner. At the time when I was in third grade, only fourth graders were allowed to check out these “higher-level reading” books, but from what I’ve heard from my sister (5th grade at that time) the book was incredible. After she finished reading the first two books in the series, I borrowed them. I was immediately infatuated. Thomas, Teresa, Newt, and Minho were all I thought about when I daydreamed in class. I finished the series hurriedly, fascinated by the plot development. I could imagine the massive maze in the first book and the scorching desert in the second. It was my first big read, and I loved it from start to finish

Then it was Percy Jackson. I read the complete series once. Then again. Then I read the succeeding series, The Heroes of Olympus. I reread that as well. Then I went back to the original series, and reread those books. I was enamored with Greek Mythology from Percy Jackson; as a child, I thought I could control water with my will. The story was truly fascinating.

Because of my fascination with sci-fi, I never enjoyed assigned readings. One time, my English teacher cried in elementary school after reading Love That Dog out loud to the class. But no cool magic, I must’ve thought as I watched uncomfortably as my classmates started crying as well. My parents were also concerned about my sci-fi obsession. You’re not reading enough non-fiction, my mother said. Yeah, whatever. I continued diving into sci-fi novels; by 6th grade, I was checking out fiction novels from the young-adult section of the Nichols Library. I kept binging fiction and kept ignoring school readings. That all changed in 8th grade.

Fahrenheit 451. It was nothing much at first, just a mere school assignment. I skimmed the first few pages and then tossed it back into my backpack. Just some old-timey book. Still no cool magic. I complained about the reading to my piano teacher during a lesson, who scolded me as soon as I discussed my distaste. If you were mature enough, you’d read this novel with fascination. I took this as a challenge. I dug the book out and began reading it. I read a chapter, and then went back to read it again. Still no luck. I focused during the discussion in English. I went home later at night and brought the book to the kitchen table. I read up to the assigned chapter. Then I read past it. Ah, it finally clicked. The Nazis burned books. They stayed in control.

The next day, I shared my discovery with the class during the discussion. I must’ve felt so proud in that moment. After reading, rereading, and thoroughly enjoying George Orwell’s 1984 in freshman year, I revisited Fahrenheit 451. For both books, I differentiated the story from today’s society. I imagined, and truly imagined, the destruction of freedom if these were to occur in the future of America. I remember discussing with my parents the implications of the restrictions of knowledge throughout history, especially in today’s polarized society. I remember discussing the irony of these books being controversial and banned in many countries. I learned, through these books, how to question everything I heard. I learned the difference between following and trusting. I hated politics, but I couldn’t stop talking about it. It’s funny how I went from interpreting dialogue from pictures of comic books to applying lessons from dystopian literature to our ever-changing social climate. Even though I haven’t read many great works recently (except for The Things They Carried), I’m proud to say that I’ll be able to pick one up, appreciate the beauty of its writing, and learn with a broad mind.