The Casual Observer | Satire | wprnPublicRadio.com
Why We Can’t Allow Flying Cars
by Rob DeMarco
Technology can be great, or it can cause problems. If it helps people and the world, if it sets us back, it may be problematic at best.
Let’s look at cars in this context.
The invention of the wheel is complex to improve on, and we already have a national highway system and community roads in place. Unfortunately, little thought was given to the growth of cities, suburbs, vacation travel, job commutation, or the sheer number of cars in use today. Traffic congestion is almost everywhere, and it has become a major problem for populated areas, freeways that have to handle cars, and a massive increase in goods that need to be shipped in trucks.
Many roads are being widened to handle today’s traffic load, but once again, are we looking far enough ahead? Widening roads is not easy to accomplish. Especially in older cities, it may be impossible due to existing infrastructure and a lack of space for an extra lane or exit ramp.
People stuck in traffic want solutions, but are there any? Many times that I have been in bumper-to-bumper traffic, I wished I could just push a button, levitate my car, and fly away. I would take the shortest route home, just as the crow flies. Just like the Jetsons! Wow, life in the future will be great when we have flying cars!
But there will never be flying cars for the general population. We can’t allow it.
When you see a large group of birds in a field suddenly take off in flight, they perfectly synchronize with each other. There are no collisions among the birds. How do they do it? I’m not sure if anyone knows. But until we figure that little trick out, can you imagine every car in the world lifting off the ground, flying up in the sky, heading in all different directions? It would be CHAOS!
