Word: smartly
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...pilot the car--is the big one. Getting in and out of the fast lanes is always tricky even today. It will be even trickier when you have to change lanes and hand off control to the computer at the same time. Making the transition to true no-hands smart roads, says David Cole, director of the University of Michigan's Office for the Study of Automotive Transportation, is an engineering challenge that will probably take another 20 years to complete. Even then the fledgling industry will face the daunting task of merging these automated cars with highways already jammed...
Their enthusiasm makes some sense. Smart highways, with their mechanized legions of cars racing along in perfect, synchronized formation, should have fewer accidents and produce less pollution than today's freewheeling freeways. And it may be cheaper to make today's highways smart enough to carry heavier traffic loads than to build new railroads or monorails from scratch...
There's plenty of smart-car technology that is ready, however, and Japanese automakers are better positioned to bring it to market than their American competitors. While the U.S. has focused on the conduits, pouring tens of millions into advanced smart-highway systems, Japan has kept its eyes on nearer-term prizes, making its cars intelligent by adding one on-board feature at a time. It's an approach that could add value to the cars--and reap healthy profits for their makers--for decades to come, whether or not the smart highway arrives on schedule...
Even if the smart highway never arrives and we have to drive ourselves to work indefinitely, it is likely that we'll be supported by an array of sophisticated gadgetry that would dazzle Henry Ford. One antidrowsiness system developed by Nissan, for instance, uses a video camera mounted on the instrument panel to count the frequency and duration of the driver's blinks to determine if he or she is getting dangerously sleepy. To rouse a dozing driver, the system sounds an electronic beeper while a disembodied female voice advises the driver to "please take a rest." Meanwhile, a blast...
QUOTE OF NOTE: [On the 1996 welfare-reform bill] "It's a tough, smart bill. It sends a strong message that those on welfare will be required to work, while at the same time ensuring that poor children are protected as we reform welfare...