2008 Autos Doomed to Crash

Attend any of the 2008 auto shows and you won't find one crash-free car, despite the fact that makers have the technology. That means another model year goes by and another year will pass in which 3,500 Americans will die on the roads each month with no end in sight.

Who's to blame? Ask any of the automakers why they allow their cars to crash and kill and they'll site the "human factor". In fact everyone who's aware of this technology, from safety experts to government policy makers, sites the human factor.

So let's examine the "human factor". It's an industry euphemism for "People won't like it." The "it" is really IT, Intelligent Transportation, which involves a huge array of integrated, technology systems in vehicles and the environment that do everything you can imagine, including drive our cars. It's easy to imagine and even prove with research that most American drivers of any generation would have a knee-jerk negative reaction to the idea of giving up driving to anyone, especially a computer system.

But who needs to give up driving to drive a crash-free car? Ask those same Americans if they'd want to drive in a world where they and other drivers drive cars that won't hit anything and their answer is just as easy to imagine. "Yes."

Can the quiet horror of our time be happening because we aren't asking the right question?

The Quiet Horror of Princess Diana's Death

Have we learned nothing from the death of Princess Diana ten years ago tomorrow?

If she could, what would she say to her children, to our children, to all of us? The answer — even if she could say it from beyond this life — would go unpublished because it's not sensational and it's tragically common. She'd say, "Tell my children to buckle up: Dodi and I would have lived in the back seat just as Trevor lived in the front seat." An unspoken lesson because we'd rather talk of paparazzi or Paris parties than speak of safety belts. There's just no sizzle, no sales in it, and we're unwilling to let Diana die any differently than we let her live, as a satisfaction for our celebrity appetite. And so the quiet horror of millions killed and maimed by traffic accidents goes on and on, averaging more than 3,500 deaths a month in America alone.

Anymore we're numbed by the horror and no longer hear traffic safety chants like "Buckle up" or "Don't drink and drive."

But there's another lesson in the traffic death of Diana. It lays dormant deep below our public conversation. So deep, in fact, that when you hear it you may not grasp what you're hearing. And it's likely that some among us would rather keep this from our conversation, and so important that future generations will shake their heads, possibly even cry, as they judge us harshly for not acting on it. Here it is.

For decades now, we could have been making cars — including sleek Mercedes for carrying princesses — that can't hit anything.

Well over a decade ago, none other than the U.S. Department of Transportation demonstrated the technology at high speeds on busy Interstate highways. It's not expensive technology given the life-saving benefit to William, Harry and millions more who would not lose loved ones to traffic "accidents".