Sunday, September 27, 1998

Preparing to face the Y2K car curse

By Dale McFeatters

For those with dark views about how the century will end, there were some disturbing reports in the news recently.

A congressional committee has given the government, including the U.S. Department of Transportation, a "D" in its efforts to remedy the Y2K virus. That's the bug that will cause computers to go haywire in 2000 because even though these brilliant machines can tell time to a billionth of a second, they don't know what century they're in.

Meanwhile, the retro look is sweeping the automotive world. The VW Bug and Plymouth's hot rod, the Prowler, are two examples, and even newer cars will do away with the soft, rounded, lozenge shape in favor of the hard-edged, scooped and creased look of the 1960s and early '70s. Even Cadillac is coming out with an homage to the tailfin, but not those four-foot babies of 1957.

And, in another related item, cars will be almost totally computerized.

For example, in today's cars, when the steering wheel is turned, the steering column turns a rack and pinion that turns the front wheels. The whole system, from driver to tire, is mechanically connected. Not so in tomorrow's cars.

The steering wheel will not be connected to anything except a black box that will send a digital electronic signal to a black box on the front wheels instructing them to turn. Similarly, the accelerator and brake pedals will not directly cause the car to go and stop but transmit signals telling other black boxes what to do.

Most cars already have electronic engine controls, and it will be only a short step to wiring everything -- climate control, entertainment, air bags and seat belts, door locks and sun roof -- into a central black box.

So here it is, Jan. 1, 2000, and you're motoring along in your new car, a sleek computerized version that from the outside looks a vintage Terraplane.

Suddenly your radar-controlled talking hood ornament ("Attention, good person. You are getting too close to my car door with your shopping cart. Thank you.") begins screaming ethnic insults at tough-looking kids standing on street corners.

The Y2K bug has taken over your car -- and all because the Department of Transportation couldn't pull its grade up from a "D."

Your hood ornament has stopped talking because a kid with orange hair, a nose ring and an Osama bin Laden tattoo has hammered it flat with a baseball bat. He can't get into the car because the electronic door locks don't work. You can't get out, either.

The climate control system has pumped up the interior temperatures to 105 degrees. As the saying goes, it's not the heat, it's the humidity, which is at 95 percent, meaning you can't see out the windows. That's kind of bad because the car is moving.

You stamp on the brakes. Nothing happens. You turn the wheel. Nothing happens. You stab at the accelerator. Again, nothing. After all, they're not connected to anything but a black box, which, thanks to the Y2K virus, thinks it's a video game called Death Drive 2000.

The car begins to accelerate, triggering the automatic warning, a recorded Al Gore saying, "High speeds needlessly waste precious resources and contribute to global warming." With the car now going 120 mph, Gore sounds like a chipmunk.

With the radio booming the Volkswagen song "Da Da Da" at maximum volume, you catapult off the end of an unfinished freeway, into the next century and into the next life, trapped in a 1938 Hudson.

Too soon to worry? I think not.

Scripps Howard News Service