Posts

Posted on

Why People Drive Cars, Part 2: The Journey

Happy Canada Day!

First of all, Happy Canada Day! I write this article as fireworks rise and explode over the local park while I enjoy them from my bedroom window.

If you have not been to Canada, maybe you should take a journey there!
Happy 152nd birthday Canada!

It does not matter if you are Canadian or not, or if you are in Canada or not, or taking a journey in Canada or not. I am a Canadian living in Canada, so for me July 1st is Canada Day, and I wish you a happy one whether you care or not!

With that out of the way, I warn you not to be fooled. Despite the title of this post I am not trying to explain why people go out and drive cars. If you have even driven a car, or have ever travelled by car, it might be somewhat obvious. Well, besides people who are showing off their Lambourghinis or other expensive cars!

People. Drive. Cars.

I want to explain why I used the phrase “People Drive Cars” as my site’s name. In my previous post I explained how I came up with the phrase, but why exactly did I use it? Well, for starters, it is simple and easy to remember. People. Drive. Cars. Not only are they three common words, but they make sense together.

On a more selfish note, the phrase has not been used for a website before. In fact, typing “peopledrivecars” into Google brings up my website first, though sadly, it does not appear when typing “people drive cars” – at least, not yet.

So the phrase is simple and unique, surely a good way to brand something one might want to sell. However, I used the phrase because of its connotations with people going on journeys. I may not be the most travelled person, nor have I been to the most places, but I am fond of journeys.

What is a Journey?

By journeys, I do not exclusively mean vacations. Of course, many vacations ARE journeys (those that are not are usually referred to as “stay-cations”), and not just because of the obvious travelling aspect. They require planning and some forethought as to where one wants to go and what one wants to do.

So a journey involves a person or people travelling to a particular destination for a particular reason, or set of reasons. Sometimes we may not know our destination or our reasons for undertaking such a journey. Many people reference the journey of life, how life is like a journey, though besides the destination for our bodies being six feet under, no one really knows where we will end up. The same is true for the reasons for our life’s journey. Some say we make one for ourselves, while others say that there is a reason preordained by a higher power (maybe God, maybe the government).

Historically, the word journey came from the French journée, meaning day, which came from the Latin diurnum meaning a daily portion. So the word journey basically means “a day’s travel” and also means “a day’s work” in reference to it’s use in words such as journeyman (a skilled worker who has completed an apprenticeship).

I like this meaning because a journey is a day-by-day account of where we have gone and what we have done. Our long vacations and trips can be described day-by-day. Our lives (if one was willing to listen to the whole story) could be told day-by-day. I think back in my own life to all the trips I went on and places I have travelled to, and see them all as journeys, done day-by-day.

My Journeys

Since I was a child, my family would go to a far-off destination each year, mostly by car. These road trips were taken in a minivan, with my parents in the front seats, myself and my sister in the middle, and my brother in the back. I was in the middle because I was the eldest child. I was responsible for passing food and drinks from the cooler to whoever wanted food or drink. My brother was in the back so he could sleep through the ride. This was a good thing, since he had a sensitive stomach when he was younger and long car rides made him queasy. My sister sat beside me since there was nowhere else for her to sit. My brother would not let her take up his sleeping space.

A 1995 Dodge Caravan. The road trip vehicle of choice for my family.
A 1995 Dodge Caravan. The road trip vehicle of choice for my family.

Family Vacations

I am certain that before I was 18 my family had gone to every interesting place that was an 8 hour road trip away from Toronto. Montreal, Ottawa, Boston, New York City, and Chicago were obvious targets. Niagara Falls, Algonquin Park, Sauble Beach, Muskoka, Sandbanks Park, and the Thousand Islands were other visited attractions.

As my siblings and I grew older we travelled further afield. We went to Baltimore and Washington D.C. by car one summer. After that the next few trips were by plane. For the turn of the century we returned to the Philippines, the land of my birth, many years since we had left it. We went to Disney World (as any kid should) and Universal Studios as well. Another trip to the Philippines was made the year after, though after that there were no more family trips since I was about to enter university and money would have to come from somewhere to pay for that.

Travelling Sans Family

However, just because the family trips stopped did not mean that mine did. In fact, starting in my second year of university I went to Ottawa, Calgary, and Montreal in the dead of winter, learning about the cold, chinooks, frozen rivers, mountains, and drunken all-night parties. I was with fairly trustworthy people in a fairly trustworthy organization, so my parents mostly approved.

My journeys did not stop after university; in fact, they were further afield. A couple of years after university I went to Japan for martial arts, the first of many trips for that reason. In fact, the year after I went back again with a few of my friends, but this time for fun. This was also about the time when I started taking my own photos of the places I had seen.

Kofukuji Five Storied Pagoda in Nara, Japan.
Kofukuji Five Storied Pagoda in Nara, Japan.

The Whole Gang Again

About this time my youngest sibling finished university, so it was time for family vacations again. There was quite a bit of sightseeing to do on the West Coast of Canada and the United States, so we went to Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and San Diego (not all in one trip of course). And just because these places were far from home did not mean we did not drive. Using rental cars we saw Vancouver Island, the Mojave Desert, Yosemite Park, and the Grand Canyon.

I also did a couple of vacations with my brother, and those were quite fun. In two tours of two weeks each (not in the same year) we completely finished seeing Croatia and Ireland, with little snippets of Italy, Bosnia, and Northern Ireland as well.

Dubrovnik, Croatia and King's Landing.
King’s Landing, Westeros? Or Dubrovnik, Croatia?

And remember when I said that I went on trips because of martial arts and that one was only my first? Well, I went to a few other places for the same reason, including Japan (again), Chile, Peru, and Maine. Of course I went to Machu Picchu, and I also took a detour to Easter Island.

Just Me This Time

If you are still with me, you must think that I like to boast about my travels. This is hardly boasting. This has just been a list. You see, I did not mention my two most memorable trips. They are worthy to be called journeys. They are the ones people hear about with shock and awe and bewilderment. People call me crazy or weird or insane for having gone alone in the first place. However, it was not where I went but what I did that made them the journeys that they are.

In the winters of 2014 and 2019 I made pilgrimages in Spain and in Italy, respectively. In Spain I walked from the city of León, through the Cantabrian Mountains, to Oviedo. Then my real journey began, walking along the hills of northern Spain to the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela where the remains of St. James were buried. In Italy I walked from the town of Piacenza, outside of Milan, southward across the Apennine Mountains and the hills of Tuscany to the Eternal City – Rome. Both of these were journeys of more than 500km and took three weeks to complete.

The Camino de San Salvador through the Cantabrian Mountains.
The second day of my journey from León to Oviedo across the Cantabrian Mountains.

And My Point Is…

Both of these journeys had many days’ worth of stories to tell. They were the primary motivators for my starting a blog about journeys in general. The ordeals that I went through each day are stories in their own right, and someday I may set my affairs in order to document them. When I thought about those journeys I realized that many other walks in my life had been journeys as well. The 15 minute walk from my home to the local library? Yup, it was a journey (for a nine year old me). A walk in the park? Yes, also a journey (I found two new pets that day). What made them special journeys? I will tell you why, little by little, when I tell these stories.

So my point (and the point of this whole blog) is that we are all living our own lives, and going on our own journeys. We may think that they do not mean much, but when examined closely, could tell us much about ourselves and about the world around us. I will try to tell my story through my stories, hopefully sooner rather than later. I will also try to post some of my pictures online, for they sometimes tell stories better than words can.

Until the next post, take care.

Posted on

Why is the blog called “People Drive Cars”?

My first ever post was about self-driving cars. I am not really an expert on them, and only have a limited interest in them. I envisioned a set of posts to bring the website’s focus from cars to journeys, but I have no desire to write about cars. However, I do need to express my choice of name for this blog.

I came up with the phrase “people drive cars” when I was 25 years old. I had about nine years of driving experience by then and just enough intelligence and wisdom to analyze how other’s drove. Periodically I would notice how fast or slow people went, whether or not they used their turn signals, and how they handled lane changes and other maneuvers . I noticed these things despite the fact I had lots of other things to do while driving, like listening to the radio, think about random thoughts, and of course, drive!

How do other people drive?

Does not look like anyone I know…but I see this face all the time.

When I first noticed these things, I did not giving them much thought. However, I soon began trying to connect what I saw with the people in the cars. For example, sometimes someone would speed past me on the highway and cut me off without using a turn signal or leaving space between us. At first I thought like everyone else does, that this person is an aggressive driver. However, my mind began the wonderfully human process of looking at things from another point of view, this time the view of the other driver.

Maybe this person was a new driver with a lead foot, requiring all his ability and focus to get their car where he wanted it, no brain power to spare to signal or check blind spots or notice how fast he was going.

Maybe the driver loved to go fast, and had no sympathy for the slow drivers around her, meaning everybody else on the road.

Perhaps he was very late for a meeting. It could be that she was herself cut off and felt a temporary surge of rage. The same rage I could have felt if I let such an action get to me.

Speeding to conclusions

Whatever the case may be, we quickly come to conclusions. We not only state how poorly that person drove but also about what they were feeling and thinking. And if we do that then we start speculating about what kind of person they are. And snap judgments about a person’s character from a fleeting encounter are not likely to be entirely correct.

I tried not to come to any conclusions from just one driver at one particular point in time. I let many encounters of all types happen before I started trying to piece some ideas together in my mind. This led me to the phrase “people drive cars”, emphasis on people.

People and cars

Cars are cars. Some are cool, some are expensive, some are really dangerous, and some even drive themselves, but all are tools at the mercy of people. People decide where to go, when to go, and why. For the vast majority of us, we put our foot to the pedal and our hands to the steering wheel. We make our cars go and stop as we please, as if they were an extension of our very being, though some of us with a bit more dexterity and precision than others.

Though I was able to develop this insight, the thoughts would not stop pouring into my head. Everyone on the road (presumably) has their driver’s license, but what does that actually mean? There are really old drivers out there who got their licenses when the requirements were very different. Some people learned to drive elsewhere and brought their habits (good or bad) to our roads. Distracted people, crazy people, tired people, and weird people are out there driving. Some of these people should not be driving. And yet, they are.

Bad driving with a good friend

I remember one night when I was out late drinking with a few of my friends. It was very late and I could not go home since the subway had stopped running. One of my friends offered to let me sleep in his family’s home, and I took up the offer. As he drove to his place we stopped at an intersection to turn left. So far so good, except the traffic light was green. That was a surprise. What happened next was even more surprising. As soon as the light turned red, my friend raced through the left turn! This was despite the red light and the few cars that had gathered on the opposing street. I went from surprised to scared straight!

I was odd seeing my friend drive like this, he who was usually quiet and calm. Maybe he was tired, as the hour was late. It could have been that he might have had a bit too much to drink. Perhaps it was the somewhat outlandish stereotype of him being Chinese that was the cause. But you have to wonder, even with all these issues (real or imagined or made up stereotypes), was it possible that he had a certain way of driving which made him susceptible to stopping at a green light and driving through a red light? Or was I overthinking the situation while being tipsy and afraid for my life?

Human actions make cars go

Since then, I have seen many more examples of human behaviour, both within a car and without. Though I still have much to learn about the human condition, I am aware that most actions do not have simple causes and thoughts behind them, leading me to always remind myself that “people drive cars”.

With the name out of the way, I hope to explain the connection between this site’s name and my topic of interest – journeys. However, that will have to wait for another post.

Posted on

Another Post, Finally!

Italian cars on an Italian train en route to an Italian city.
Cars on a journey, but no people to drive them!

It has been a long while since I posted on this blog. Too long. And I can hardly call this a blog when it has only one post from 10 months ago and the site itself is incomplete. I have plenty of reasons for the delay, though the vast majority of them are simply excuses, nothing more. Still, perhaps going through the mindset of a serial procrastinator may shed some insight into the human condition, though I doubt it will illuminate anything not already known to you and to me.

Motivation

I did not have strong motivations for starting this blog. All I had was stories in my head and a succinct, easy-to-remember URL (peopledrivecars.com). I thought to myself, “I’d better use this phrase before someone else does.” This was back in February 2018. As of now, after a search for “peopledrivecars” (no spaces) this site is the 22nd search result on Google and the 1st search result on DuckDuckGo and Yahoo (excluding ads). My fears were unfounded, but on the other hand I did not seen any results from my investment and my efforts (as if either of those were substantial in the first place).

Despite the name of the site and the topic of my first post, I am not very interested in cars. Where I came up with the phrase “People drive cars” (emphasis on People) will be the topic of a whole other post. For now, it should suffice for me to say that if I have any sort of attachment to cars it is because of what they do for us, namely, to get people from one place to another.

Intention

Though I was not strongly motivated to use my blog, I did have a definite intention. I wanted to write about my personal experiences, specifically about travelling and journeys. Not quite a travel blog; more like describing the act of going on a journey, or surmounting obstacles, or the experience of exploration. Mind you, I am not some sort of professional explorer or traveller. My jobs (when I am working) usually have me in an office somewhere. Sometimes I do have to travel to an office in another city, but most of the time the travel is run-of-the-mill and there is nothing to report.

Though my intentions were there, I had poor motivation and strong procrastination skills. Let’s see why else it took me so long to write again. After my first post, I got lazy. Then I was laid off, which gave me a valid excuse to be lazy. After that I was just procrastinating. I did go on a two week trip to Peru in September, and yes, I did go up to Machu Picchu, but that’s a story for another time. I came back and got lazy again. December came, and the Christmas season gave me yet another excuse to be lazy. In February I did go to Italy and walked 700km in 19 days, but now I’m back. And I have finally posted something here.

What is coming up?

So if my intentions are to write about my journeys, what will my actions be concerning this blog? Firstly, my next few posts will shift the focus of the site from the item in its name, peopledrivecars, to my more general interest in journeys. In the next week or so I hope to explain:

  • Where I came up with the phrase, “People drive cars”;
  • Why I thought it was appropriate as the name of a blog about journeys; and
  • What I think a journey is, exactly.

Hopefully this time my motivations will be strong enough to complete a few posts within the next week instead of within the next year.

Posted on

How Do Self-Driving Cars Drive?

When I type that question into Google, I get articles about the technology used to control a self-driving vehicle. This includes lidar, radar, and camera systems, GPS accurate to 30cm (1 ft), and custom-built software running on sophisticated computers. I also get back tables demonstrating the different levels of autonomy, or ability to self-drive. There are also a few charts showing how the information received from the sensors is utilized. That data is used to provide situational awareness to avoid obstacles and choose the correct path to the destination. A few of the articles cover more than just technology, but they veer towards the topic of ethics and morals and how a self-driving car actually decides on how many people to kill or not kill.

That’s all well and good, but there’s something missing. When we talk about human drivers, what kind of language do we use? We see someone speeding past us and say that they are in a hurry. When someone follows us too closely, we accuse them of being aggressive drivers. When there is someone driving slowly in the fast lane we think about the often mentioned stereotypes about old drivers, women drivers, or possibly old women drivers. How about drivers who keep weaving into our lane? They’re distracted drivers, drunk drivers, or sometimes they are Chinese/Indian/*insert ethnicity here* drivers, depending on the stereotypes you may hold to be true.

What Kind of Driver Would a Computer Be if it were a Person?

With this in mind, what kind of driver would a computer be? Consider what the computer is doing. It is taking in cues from the environment to paint a picture of its surroundings, in order not to make collisions as well as to follow the path provided by its GPS. On the surface, its actions sound just like what humans do, but let’s reverse the roles here to analyze just how a computer would handle a situation a regular commuting driver might see every day.

For example, we see a sign that our exit off the highway is coming up in a mile. If there is lots of space we will probably move our car into the correct lane as soon as possible. However, in busy traffic there may be a long queue stretching back far from the actual exit. Some people will dutifully wait at the end of the line. Some of us though are quite impatient and will feel like trying to cut into the line as close to the exit as possible. Out of those less patient people, some of them might be quite aggressive and squeeze their cars into any open space, while others might signal and wait for someone to let them in, even if they hold back a lane full of cars.

I Wonder What It’s Thinking About

Whatever your thoughts on the above situation, realize that this is an everyday part of driving. Making decisions, weighing your options, assessing the environment, and so forth. Computers can do that too, but how exactly do their thought processes work?

  • When will an automated vehicle start preparing itself to take an exit off the highway?
  • Will that change based on the level of traffic? Or is there a hardcoded value?
  • What if the queue is so long that it overshoots the end of the line and must merge somehow?
  • Will the computer be aggressive in its quest to make the exit, shoving its nose into the line? Or will it be very passive and hope someone will let it in out of the goodness of their hearts, even though the computer has no heart and hence no moral compunctions to guide it?
  • Is it willing to stop an entire lane of traffic in order to merge? If it is willing, does it know if the car behind it is following way too closely and that stopping abruptly could cause a crash?

I have no idea if any of these questions have been addressed by companies working on automated vehicles. These few questions about  this single situation make me wonder if there is any thought about how a driver-less vehicle actually drives. I’m sure there has been some thought, but has any thought gone into how self-driving cars would be perceived by other (human) drivers?

Driving Hardware and Software

Imagine ourselves as fleshy computers driving our own vehicles. Our hardware is a bio-computer sending electrical signals to meat sticks that turn steering wheels and jam clothed flesh into pedals. However, the computer of an automated vehicle that is integrated directly to the machinery of the vehicle can provide control at a level beyond all but the most experienced of us flesh bots.

Our software, however, varies greatly. This is where experience and use of knowledge comes into play. We can easily change and adjust how we drive on the fly, and not just in reaction to outside stimuli. In other words, we can decide on how we want to drive. Computers have to follow their programming, and if a programmer decides that the computer must be a “defensive” driver, then the passenger might wonder why it is taking forever to merge into a lane full of very closely spaced drivers who refuse to give an inch to anyone.

This brings up another bunch of questions:

  • Can owners of self-driving vehicles alter or adjust their programming?
  • Can we click a switch to make the car more or less aggressive?
  • Could we decide how much space the car should leave in between it and the car ahead?
  • Could I tell my car to go 30km/h over the speed limit, but only on the highway?

My guess for all those questions would be a resounding “No”, because some higher power will decided that a bunch of automated cars should be interconnected with each other to create optimal flow, leaving driving (and choice) out of the hands of their silly human owners.

People Drive Cars

The self-driving car is a reactionary driver, best suited for the open road. Well-built rural roads and highways through rural areas seem to be the best environment for self-driving cars, at least for the foreseeable future. Its reaction time and decision-making speed may outstrip the average driver, but its ability to make decisions is limited to what it senses. It could perform defensive driving maneuvers based on snap decisions, but it cannot ascertain intentions. People can make judgments (even bad ones) and imagine various situations, abilities far beyond our current machines. We might be slaves to our smartphones, but at the moment we are not slaves to the decision-making powers of our cars.

People drive cars. They have been ever since the first car rolled out onto the streets. Even when rules and regulations appeared to dictate how fast we should drive and what colour traffic light we should stop at, we people still remain the main driving force behind the multi-ton conglomerations of steel and plastic that zoom (or crawl) by us every day.

People drive cars. Even the ones that drive themselves. After all, people designed the hardware and software used to navigate and propel the vehicle, and those are subject to all the assumptions that their very human designers have about driving. But even when cars can drive themselves in all conditions, it will be people that go on journeys.