Wednesday, June 19, 2019

Practically Flying

Maybe it's time to come clean on this whole flying car thing. I have spent years and years complaining to anyone who would listen or read about my desperate need to be shown the future where we get from place to place through the air instead of being chained to city streets by something so mundane as gravity.
Well, as it turns out, there are probably some very good reasons why your average commuter sin't being handed the keys to the very latest hovercar. Let's start with the number of times we witness other drivers who seem to be incapable of operating that most simple of devices, a turn signal. Just a friendly note to those around that you are going to change direction. Or something on a par, physically, such as switching from high beams to low headlights to keep from blinding oncoming traffic? I am sure that everyone reading this is a thoughtful and considerate driver and always maintains correct following distance and slows down in school zones and so forth, but there seems to be a number of unaccounted for individuals who struggle with some of these obligations.
Now go ahead and imagine that this same kind of recklessness would occur any more than a foot or two from the ground. Even with the advent of self-driving cars and collision alerts, we still manage to get in the way of one another on a regular basis. And that's just getting out of the parking lot. Imagine having to deal with that joker a thousand feet above the planet, at speeds required to keep a hunk of metal and carbon fiber aloft.
Yes, suddenly the dream dies. Hard. It's what made Superman so super. He was the one guy who could fly around, zipping off to save this or that. Mostly Lois Lane. But what if everyone had that ability? Men, women, boys, girls, all leaping off to this or that event or whim. The air would be filled with every Tom, Dick and Mary on their way to lunch or to rescue an ocean liner. It would get crowded. Stupidly so. And good luck getting everyone to follow the prescribed speed limits, even if it happened to be that of a speeding bullet.
So what I'm saying here is that I'll be fine for now with the four wheels and the windshield. No need for turbines and pressurized cockpit. Not yet anyway. The future can wait a few years for me to catch up to my own fantasies.

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