The Hunt for Red Accord

When we were children, we were promised many things. Flying cars. Teleporters. Jetpacks. Man walking on the moon. We were told that these things we all but a certainty. Of course, we now realize that all of the aforementioned things were merely the pipe dreams of a baby boomer generation that had failed to accomplish very much at that point. Well I thought it was time for me to come up with a fantastical idea of my own that is truly awesome yet has no chance of ever being made.

Nowadays we have all this cool voice activated stuff in our cars. Voice activated dialing, music volume control and various other commands. I want to take it a step further and make all aspects of driving voice activated. Accelerating, braking, steering, wipers, blinkers and gear shifters would all be voice activated. This would enable people to do what they really want to do while driving, namely anything other than concentrating on driving.

I then want to take it a step further and add themes. In particular, I want to issue submarine themed commands to control my vehicle. Unfortunately, if you are not familiar with submarine movies, the following will almost certainly fly over your head.

For starters, I might want to start my car by saying something similar to: "make ready the vehicle, secure all hatches. Stow all luggage and soft drinks."

To begin driving to my destination I might utter: "Set your course to Whataburger, make your speed 35 knots, drive drive drive".

In the event I was cut off by an unruly driver I might wish to give the command of: "Sound the alarm, one honk only please."

If I were to find myself driving through a rainstorm, the following command would be given: "Set wipers to medium, engage the rear defrosts."

Should cars of the future be able to fire nuclear warheads I might issue the following order: "Set condition 1SQ for strategic missile launch. Spin up missiles 1-5 and 20-24. The use of nuclear weapons have been authorized. This is not a drill"

Should the car ever disobey or question a command, I would simply dismiss the AI by saying "you're relieved" and then proceed to take manual control over the car.

All orders would be read back in full by the in car AI, voiced by Sam Neil of course, and then followed by "aye aye sir." The headlights will also be capable of flashing morse code in the event of me ever wanting to defect. And, of course, should my car be fatally totaled in an accident, its last words to me would be something along the lines of: "I would like to have seen Montana." Of course, if I had in fact driven the car through Montana at some point, another Sam Neil quote would have to suffice here...

I do suppose other themes could be made for those out there who don't necessarily want to issue naval commands. However since they would in no way be as awesome, I have decided not to list them here. Hopefully my idea of the future will become more of a reality than the ones I was told as a kid.