Semantic autos
Posted on:: September 18th, 2004
I was talking with Mark Dionne a couple of days ago about my failed attempt to create a hand gesture that apologizes to drivers for unwarranted honks of annoyance. Today Mark passed along a link to “a car that can wag its tail” that the Car Talk guys mentioned. (Photo here, once you click past the obnoxious overlay ad.)
Little does Mark know that I was on the verge of publishing my own breakthrough idea about this. A few days ago, I nearly hit a car that was making a left into the street because its turn signal simply was not visible from my direction. See the example below.
So, why not make a signal device that’s visible from all angles?
I call it an intention vane. It’s sure to catch on, don’t you think?
I found a photo of the real thing here:
http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/?http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/ae_news_story.php?da=1&id=48739
It gets better! This site has an excellent movie demonstrating the “Thanks Tail”. This one looks different from the one on the site I gave previously. It would seem that several manufacturers are developing them.
http://www.petworks.co.jp/~hachiya/works/etail.html
I think your wishes will be answered sooner than you think. After Bush gets re-elected, we’ll all soon be able to order our SUVs with Bushmaster (get it?) 25mm automatic cannons turret-mounted on the top of the vehicle. (photo here: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/systems/dvic482.jpg )
It’s part of a Department of Transportation highway safety/Department of Fatherland, er, I mean Homeland Security anti-terrorism program. Apart from the obvious uses of flushing out nests of Islamo-fascist sleeper cells, it’s a hell of a turn signal!
You gotta think win-win in these difficult days.
The craziness resumes…