These Cars Smile. That Makes Me Laugh. I Mean Cry.

The NYT reports on a new patent for An Automobile with Feelings.

The idea here is that technology be developed to make automobiles, cartoon-like, "wink" and "blush" and bend their windshield wipers into angry eyebrows.

Or something.

This is so off the deep end.

And it's clearly indicative of the generally wrong-headed approach that science and industry have taken to "innovation" in the evolution of the automobile.

Practically speaking, the most important development that the automotive industry could make would be to make cars automatic, i.e., robotically driven. People have not evolved the senses necessary to control a two-and-a-half-ton hurtling metal missile as it careens down highways two or three feet away from other cars, filled with other people.

The inventors believe these features on cars will make driving more entertaining.

No it won't. Driving shouldn't be entertaining. Driving should be recognized for what it is: unnecessary risk, and the source of tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths every year, all over the world.

It sucks, we should fix it.