We drive on Trust.

We have had to come to terms with the fact that a young man would deliberately crash an airplane with 149 people on board because he wanted to end his own life. Why would he do that? Simply because he could!

It has happened several times in the recent past, resulting with over 500 people having lost their lives, and it will happen again in the future. That is just one of the many risks of life with which we must cope. Whether we get to live to celebrate our 100th birthday will require good health, a prudent lifestyle, and a really good measure of very good luck.

Statistically, commercial air travel is still far safer than driving.There are far fewer journeys that end in a crash when flying than when driving. When we set out on a car journey we trust that we will return safely. We should be sober and alert, and we should obey the rules of the road to improve the odds of survival. In the end we rely on our fellow drivers to do the right thing at the right times, and they rely on us to do the same thing. Here in Spain the loss of life on the roads has been improving, in that far fewer people have been victims over the past several years. This is due to a growing sense of responsibility; more people choosing not to drink alcohol our drive under the influence of drugs that impair judgement.

We are proving to ourselves that we can pull together to make a success of driving safely.

The deliberate loss of Germanwings flight AU 9525 should be mourned and the actions of that young man should be condemned, but the best thing that we can do to honour the victims is to live our lives so that no other person loses their life just trying to get from one place to another.

We can do that! I am sure we can!

Copyright 2015  Eugene Carmichael

Jeremy!

First I have to admit that I am one of the 350 million fans of Jeremy. I read his columns and I have followed Top Gear. I think he has a wicked, irreverant, and very clever sense of humour. But, perhaps because of that, our Jeremy is also his very own worst enemy.

I try and walk in his shoes to get some sense of why he is in such trouble today. I try to imagine myself as an aging media star. He apparently has aboslute freedom to nitpick the work of thousands and thousands of people, or to praise them, and the BBC makes available massive amounts of money for him to express his art.

How much self-discipline and control does it take to keep all that affection and respect from so many people from all around the word in check? How do you keep from thinking that rules don't concern you? One million signatures were collected within a week in your support. Should you think you are invincible? You were clearly warned that rules had to be obeyed because your actions affect so many other people. Should you have cared about that?

No-one can really imagine Top Gear continuing without Jeremy, so I think we are looking at the end of the road in that regard. Jeremy will most probably blame it on everyone else but himself. That's so sad. I, for one will miss him although the BBC has many years worth of re-runs. I imagine everyone else will be gunshy about entering into new contracts with Mr. Clarkson, so what his future holds one can only guess.

When you grow to become as big as Jeremy, and you fall from grace you make a huge splash. We, the 350 million may make a big noise for Jeremy to be brought back. That could happen but he would have to agree to be so tightly bound up that it would not likely last long.

Perhaps it's time to simply acknowledge and recognise how the mighty have fallen, and to move on.

Simply put, it's over!

Copyright (c) 2015  Eugene Carmichael

The Coming Age of vehicles that drive Themselves!

My wife asked me how did I think I would adjust to being driven in a car that drove itself?

As a person who has driven for more that 55 years, legally, I think I might find it very difficult to accept. However, I may have to get used to it because it will probably happen in my lifetime. In fact, in various forms it is happening now. We step aboard airport trains that run without a human driver and think nothing of it. An elevator is the same thing but its just that it goes up and down. But getting into the family car and programming where we want to go, then sitting back as the car does all the work to get us to our destination will take some getting used to.

However, depending on the quality of engineering, let us assume an age where no human takes the controls. What will that mean?

In one step the roads will become free of idiots, drunk drivers, boy racers, showoffs, egotists, careless drivers, speeding drivers, confused drivers, tired drivers, drivers who think they are actually in their living rooms and not their cars, drivers distracted by their children, drivers who should not be behind the wheel because of sickness or other infirmness; drivers who are under the influence of drugs, both prescribed and recreational, and drivers who no longer have the capacity to control a vehicle because of age. These are only the ones I can think of at the moment, I'm sure you can think of other drivers who should have control taken away from them.

It will also mean the end of traffic fines as the car will respond to traffic signals. There will no longer be any need to construct a vehicle that can travel at 250 kilometres an  hour when the maximum speed limit will be 120. Cars will actually stop where required and only move off when the way is clear. Hopefully there will no longer exist death on the road, so when we leave home to go to the supermarket we can reasonably expect to come home with the groceries. And one more thing that is very important: cars will park themselves in sensible places. This is, of course already available in some model cars.

Presumably the practise of stealing cars will come to an end as only the person authorised will be able to move the car forward.

Will I need a license to drive? If so, why?

All of these considerations are real because Google, and others involved in the search for automated driving are making great strides forward. Automatic driving is a reality as we speak, but not for the general public. How soon will that happen? Probably within the next ten years.

So, I repeat my wife's question for each and every one of you: How do you think you might adjust to this brave new world?

Copyright (c) 2015  Eugene Carmichael

A Bitter Disappointment!

I was so hoping that on this day, Sunday March 8th, 2015, the one year anniversary of the sudden disappearence of flight MH370, the Malaysia flight that so completely vanished, that the plane with all persons on board would magically re-appear. Why on earth would I think such a thing?

Flight MH 370 changed course from its pre-set flight pattern in a deliberate manner and its contact system was shut down to avoid detection because, presumably it was intended to take the plane to a specific unauthorized destination. My thinking was that this was a well thought out action on the part of Al Queada. I saw it as the follow-up action to their 9-11 show piece, an action that would have to be stunning. To do something in the United States, that was a country on high alert was probably impossible, but in the part of the world of Malaysia, where security was at a lower state of being, something could be possible.

The pilot was Muslim, and he had a simulator in his home. He also possibly had some difficulty in his family, if you believe reports, which would have been likely if he was practising how to land a large airplane in glider mode so as to avoid detection due to the sound of the motors. If the plane had landed deliberately in a pre-determined spot and then hidden, that would have taken a small army that was well chosen and trained. One thing that seems to be certain, judging by the movements of the plane that has been tracked, it appears to have been deliberately flown towards a definite destination.

Let me be clear: I am not saying that the pilot did anything of his own accord to have participated in the disappearence of the plane. We simply don't know what happened. However, I was hoping that in spite of how ludicrous my idea might sound, it would have been fantastic if all passengers and crew re-appeared on this first anniversary, but it wasn't to be.

There is another possibility: we may still be seeing an Al Queada PR action. To make an aircraft completely disappear as if by magic, and to create the world's greatest mystery. That is certainly what we are grappling with, but until they take credit and explain how they did it, and what happened, it has come to an abrupt end.

Copyright (c) 2015  Eugene Carmichael 

On Standby awaiting explosive Breaking News on Sunday March 8th!

I anticipate that Sunday, March 8th will produce amazing news.

Please standby!

Copyright (c) 2015  Eugene Carmichael