Presumptive Idiots

Guest Post by Eric Peters

There was a time – it wasn’t long ago – when you could reach into your car through the open driver’s side window, turn the ignition key and start the engine. There are a number of perfectly sound reasons for doing this – as for example when you are working on the engine and need it to be running to check/adjust the timing.

But the main reason is – was – the presumption you’re not an idiot.

That presumption no longer applies. And that’s why – if you own a new car or a car that was made since roughly the 1980s – you can only start the engine if you first place your foot on the brake. Which of course requires that you sit inside the car in order to start the car.

Similarly, in a car that has a manual transmission – if you managed to find one with one. You now have to push the clutch in before the starter will engage. It does not matter that the transmission is in neutral; it does not matter that – courtesy of this “safety” device – it is no longer possible to use the starter motor to inch the car forward, which might be handy in certain low-traction situations. What matters is that you be kept “safe” – from yourself.

There are other examples. How about the way the stereo in most new vehicles turns the volume down so low you can’t listen to what you were listening to – for the duration of the time the car is reversing? The way the GPS won’t let the driver input a street address unless the car isn’t moving (and thereby effectively defeating the point of having GPS). The way the seatbelt buzzer will berate the passenger to “buckle up” – when there is no unbuckled passenger.

Other than the bag of groceries you placed on the passenger seat.

Some hatchbacks harass you – with an endless buzzer – if you drive with the rear liftgate partially open – which is often necessary to be able to drive home with something in the cargo area that doesn’t fit with the liftgate closed. Some new cars will summarily (electrically) put the transmission in Park if you try to back up with the driver’s door cracked – so as to be able to see curb, etc.

This is, of course, really good for the transmission, too.

The latest thing is a reminder – of just how stupid you are presumed to be – that takes the form of a “check the back seats” warning light that illuminates every time you park and shut off the engine. Because maybe you forgot about the baby back there. A few people did. And now we’re all presumed to be that stupid.

This all began a long time ago. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when but – if memory serves – it was probably in the ’70s and didn’t begin with cars. If you were around for the ’70s, you probably remember when lawn mowers didn’t shut off when you let go of the push-handle. This meant you could grab a glass of water or attend to some other thing for a minute and not have to deal with the hassle of pulling the starter cord to re-start the engine. Riding mowers could also be left running without having to remain in the seat to keep the engine from stopping.

Then someone really stupid did something exceedingly stupid – such as stick their hand in the mower deck (perhaps to clear out a grass clog) with the engine running and lost a finger or maybe even their hand. Solution? Stupid-proof the mower by adding a “dead-man” handle that had to be firmly grasped to prevent it from being released. If released, the engine would shut off. Riding mowers got a similar-in-concept stupid-proofing in the form of a weight sensor built into the seat that would cut the engine if there was no weight on the seat. The problem was that shifting your weight while in the seat would sometimes cut the engine off, too.

But that’s not the real problem, of course. The real problem is the insulting assumption of imbecility implicit in such things. Which assumption became SOP for designing cars, too. You may recall the “sudden unintended acceleration” debacle of the 1980s – involving idiots and Audis. The former pressed – and held – the gas pedal rather than the brake pedal and the car didn’t stop until something stopped the car. The idiots didn’t get the blame.

The cars did.

It is now aggressively assumed that everyone’s an idiot. To such an extent as would have been unimaginable to the generation of Americans who grew up before stupid-proofing became a kind of fetish, when it was assumed that people who did stupid things would learn not to do them – in the way that a small child learns not to touch the hot stove. It’s actually rather surprising that kitchen stoves don’t have some kind of protective rail around their upper perimeter, to prevent children from learning a valuable lesson.

Learning from such lessons is how you raise up not-stupid people.

But that’s exactly what’s not wanted, as far as the people who say they’re only trying to keep us “safe.” But if that were true, they’d be encouraging us to learn not to be stupid – rather than treating us all as presumptively and irremediably stupid.

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