The World of Motion (Part 1)
Interestingly, in our future, we might just see the re-emergence of “stick” steering according to recent photos of the Mercedes SCL600.
*photo curtesy of Lighthouse Patriot Journal
This is not a first for this design. Back in 1905 the Autocar came complete with a “tiller” steering mechanism. Much like steering a fishing boat, the driver would maneuver the tiller stick from side to side in order to steer the vehicle.
The new Mercedes is thus much far advanced to this primitive engineering but still offers the same lack-luster video game approach to driving that might excite todays tongue probing pre-teenage pubescent… but depress yesterdays car buffs who can still smell the wood around the steering wheel of their first 1967 Camaro big block with the chrome pistol grip hurst shifter.
For 2057 it will be one hand on the joystick and the other on a remote control most likely. But I am sure that I am simply showing signs of minor hostility and disappointment to the later generations that have learned to do almost everything with their fingers and two imposable thumbs!
I still want to drive my car using my whole body… my feet, arms, legs, hands and of course my brain. But thanks to technology, motion will soon become a calculated and statistical response rather than a cognitive one. Perhaps we have all the recent cellular phone accidents to thank for this great idea to take even more fun away from our daily lives.
We are talking about automated parking, lane change warning systems, GPS guided steering, self applied braking systems detecting when traffic slows and entertainment systems to cloud our brains for even more hours out of the day. It won’t be too long before we can’t even scratch our own rear-ends without a robot beating us to it.
At least we still have roller coasters and there is not much that can be taken away from us there… but we’ll get to that in Part 2… (to be continued)