THE
October 8, 1984
Columnist Matt Seiden’s essay about his new American car although
humorous, had a plaintiff ring that evoked both sympathy and recognition. Too often
one hears about the new auto with a blown head gasket or malfunctioning
transmission (because the arts are made of plastic) and of salesmen who no
longer remember the customer.
However, there are other shocks in store for the American driver that
might prompt him or her to take a second look at plunking down large monies for
the new car; that might provide incentive to repairing the old; mainly the
trend towards self-serving gas stations. Now it is true that little old ladies
in tennis shoes seem adept at manipulating the pump and hose, but there are
some of us, men and women alike, who handle the gasoline hose as if it were an
unfriendly cobra.; and if one isn’t careful, one might accidentally get in the
way of an errant hose and become the next candidate for immolation without a
cause. Of course you would go out in a blaze of glory.
The fact is that a self service gas station is nothing more than a
candy store with a gas pump up front.. Everything done at the pump is
registered within on some computerized register for which the customer can pay
after having done some impulse buying of sundries.
But God help the driver whose car
has broken down, who needs a new tire, whose fan belt is frayed and
about to snap. Particularly on a weekend, this hapless soul will be stranded.
He will have the same chance of getting home as the hapless passenger bumped
off a plane in Athens or Rome. Stranded.
Worse yet for the driver on a cold day stalled in the northern reaches
of
If the age of services for drivers are over, if those on the byways of
America need help, little if any is to be found. The side roads are not
traveled as once they were, nor frequently patrolled. The only safe place to
drive in
Yet self service gas stations are proliferating at an alarming rate,
and the chances of finding a mechanic to fix your car are becoming more remote.
The engines themselves are so complicated that they are virtually unfixable by
the layman to say nothing of the skilled mechanic. Have you discovered how to
put water into your battery? Have you found the radiator? Is the location of
your gas tank spout a mystery? Where is the oil stick? No dummy, not the engine
oil, the transmission oil. The fact is that space technology has overtaken the
automobile with one major disadvantage, that there is no NASA to talk us down,
or explain to us when we are in trouble how to get home again safely. As a
matter of fact that is exactly what we need, a NASA, a central talkathon to get
drivers who are in trouble out of trouble, to signal; help for them, to teach
them how to get the darned thing started. Or else let’s go back to the simpler
engine, the one I can trouble-shoot myself. I really don’t need 1000 hoses
hiding the engine so I can get instant air and instant heat. I need visibility
and space so I can change the plug and find the distributor. I want to own the
car, not be its captive.
If the trend continues, automobile travel in America will become as
dangerous to you as the covered wagon was to pioneers traveling through hostile
territory.
Watch y-0ourself when you drive. It is no longer driver friendly out
there.
Maybe Matt Seiden is lucky his car broke down in Maryland. It could
have happened in the Dakota Badlands on a cold day or even in the Jersey
Pinelands.
Maybe the auto companies know what they are doing. Make a frail car
that can’t take you too far. It may save your life.