Welcome back to my little web column here on The Inner Swine's Sinister Web Presence (what's up with Jeff Somers and these ridiculous names? the man's an accident waiting to happen). Last column I mentioned that the main theme of my pieces would be Things That Suck, and lord knows we all have plenty to discuss on that subject, right? I'm going to try to stick to subjects that might not occur to everyone immediately, however; what's the point in writing about how much television sucks, for example? Everyone knows this, and plenty of ink (electronic and otherwise) is used to discuss it every day. So I'm going to make an attempt to fix on subjects that might not jump to mind right away. Today, we will be discussing how much automobiles suck today.
    It's a curious phenomenon, but sometimes thing become such common, everyday aspects of our llives we lose the ability to judge their suckiness quotient objectively. Things like computers or DVD players or Arena Football are new enough that they remain a novelty for some time, allowing us to judge them against prior experience. With something like the car, however, we've lost that ability. We all grew up with cars. None of us have ever lived in a world where there were no cars. Thus it's difficult to objectively look at the automobile and say, yep, this this and this really sucks about them.
    Allow me to try.
    First, I'll have to talk a little bit about what is right with cars: they run cleaner than they used to, and involve a lot of safety features that may well save my life, those are Good Things. Being able to breathe is nice, not having my head snapped off with a dry snap when I rear-end someone is a Good Thing. The engines are more efficient and more powerful, and the sheer luxury you can get in even moderately priced cars is amazing. All of this wonderful. What sucks is the creeping control over your decisions a combination of laws and manufacturer practices is creating.
    Sure, car advertisements like to play on our need for a sense of freedom and control in our lives - TV ads generally show people zipping around desert roads at 110 MPH in brand-new cars, people who apparently found that they could quit their jobs, leave their families, and flout all manner of driving laws all because they purchased the correct vehicle. But the fact is, slowly but surely, a lot of your decisions are being made for you, and that sucks. What decisions are being made for you? They range from the ridiculous to the disturbing, and inexplicably exclude the one decision you'd think Big Brother would want to make for you.
    First off: daytime running lights. What moron decided this was necessary? Someone holding stock in headlamp manufacturing companies, I'd bet. The decision to turn off your lights during the daytime may seem a minor one, and a legislated one to boot, but it still sucks simply as a representative example of lost control. Add to that: automatic seatbelts, which squirm around you in a loving embrace every time you get in the damned car. While the urge to save lives is a noble one, perhaps people should be allowed to be stupid. Allowing people to be stupid is a shocking concept in these sadly overmanaged days, I know, but it used to be a cornerstone of the democratic credo.
    This increasing trend towards automation within cars seeks to supposedly make our lives easier. So now you have interior lights that go off by themselves, door locks that automatically lock after a few seconds, cars that can be programmed to remember two or three configurations of seats and wheel positions. You know where all this is leading, don't you? That's right: cars that drive themselves. Combine increasing automation with the standardization of GPS system like OnStar (For God's sake! A GPS system for your car?) and you can see it now. Sitting down at a table in your car and saying "Home, please" and arriving at your door some time later, safe and rested.
    Why does this suck? Theoretically this is what we all want, and its supposed to allow us to bend our huge mental powers on bigger problems than driving home. Except...except the whole wonder and romance of the automobile is based on freedom, or at least perceived freedom. We love our cars because we sense in them the potential for escape, the ability to just pack up and move somewhere else if we start to dislike our surroundings. When our cars were simple machines that moved when we pressed one pedal and slowed when we pressed another, we had that freedom at all times. Driving home, you could decide to stop off for a drink, visit a friend, or abaondon your family by heading out onto the freeway. The more our vehicles are automated, the more we lose those options. Paranoid? Sure, but we're talking about an industry that has based most of its advertising cache on the fact that its products are capable of breaking numerous State laws, or do you think those cars driven by professionals on closed roads in TV ads were doing the speed limit?

    Cars will continue to increase in suckage, that's for sure. They get uglier every year, too. Pretty soon we'll be driving bubble cars from that Woody Allen movie Sleeper; even the expensive imports are beginning to look like eggs on wheels - and once again I doubt that any of us actually wrote to GM and asked them to make their cars as ugly as possible, please. Combining the ugliness of new cars with the shrinking control we have over their operation brings us to a level of potential suckage rarely approached by a major consumer item.
    Well, that's it for now. Cars: they don't quite suck yet, but they will soon, and then for the rest fo our lives. My advice is buy something nice and retro, preferably before ABS brakes were available, and cherish it. If you would like to send me feedback, Mr. Somers has generously set up an email for that purpose: timtheangryclown@innerswine.com. Until next time, remember that everything sucks.