Not my preferred co-pilot

I have an ardent love/hate relationship with technology. Those of you who read my column in CHP have heard me sing it’s praises a couple of times. Things along the lines of, “we have engines that are more powerful than ever, while also being more reliable and economical,” all thanks to technology. For that matter, our old school small and big blocks are better than ever thanks to ongoing R&D leading to ever better parts. Other than that—well, I already dig my iMac, even if some machine somewhere is keeping track of what pages I choose to surf. I was slow to come around to the iPod, but count me as a believer now—hey, I can dial up Boingo Alive whenever the mood strikes, and as bad as L.A. radio is, I’m getting more into podcasts. I’m more ambiguous about my cellphone—it’s an amazing convenience that I’d neverthless like to convenientlyh leave at home from time to time.

Given that all these devices all document personal info of one sort of another, there’s certainly a Big Brother aura to the whole thing. A new setup from Progressive Insurance, on the other hand, ventures solidly into Big Brother is Watching territory. The company’s MyRate program according to the Christian Science Monitor (click here), “uses a device plugged into the vehicle’s diagnostic port that tracks the number of miles driven, the time of day, and how aggressively the vehicle is driven. Every six months the driver sends the device to Progressive, which then calculates the insurance rate. The company says that, for each renewal term, a driver could see a savings of up to 40 percent based on his or her driving behavior. Unsafe drivers would pay more, says Progressive.”

Another part of the article at least one of these programs “would also charge drivers based on how abruptly they brake and accelerate.”

Do I even have to tell you why my response it “Oh, hell, no!?” There’s the whole privacy thing, right off the bat, though the companies involved claim their intent is not to track individual drivers. I’m not buying that one—once the technology is in place, it’s a logical next step. As for abruptly braking and accelerating…well, those things happen, whether you want them to or not. And am I the only one who, given an open stretch of twisty road, a good handling car, and an itch that needs to be scratched, goes for a good, rip-roaring ride. Personally, as long as no one gets hurt, I like it that way.

This may be out of left field, but the whole thing reminds me of an old Kirk Douglas movie, Lonely are the Brave. Douglas plays a cowboy who is decidedly out of place in the modern world of the ‘60s—fences across what was open land, and no driver’s license—he rides a horse, so who needs one. Whatever else you want to call this little-known Western, it’s certainly an anti-establishment film, and the hero ends up on the run from The Man, who wins, of course.