Saturday, February 15, 2042. 1:57pm. Before the transformation.
On the Upper Deck of the Capital Beltway, Outer Loop, near the old I-66 interchange in Virginia, the Hendersons were on their way back from seeing their grandchild’s baptism in Lutherville, Maryland, a very big deal among Mormons. Ever since CPU-controlled driving became sophisticated enough to drive a vehicle safer than a manual driver, Ken and Karen had stopped manually driving altogether. Like most people who ever learned to drive, they let their skills atrophy.
Ken sat in the driver seat, ironically still called the driver seat, while Karen sat in the passenger seat. The driver seat in automatically criving vehicles was the “control” seat and someone needed to sit there if the car was to do anything other than start up, though anyone in any seat could give navigation commands while the driver seat was occupied by someone alert and of legal age, which, by that time, was 15 in most states in the United States.
Most young people who had grown up in that day and age never learned to manually drive, even though all states allowed it on at least some roads, and Virginia was one of 18 states, mostly in the Southeast, that still allowed manual driving on any road, anywhere in the state. The only stipulation was that one had to have a manual driving certification in their General Profile, which meant that he or she had taken both the academic and simulation classes for several weeks. The driving tests of that time had become so strict that there had been people who had been manual driving for decades who could not pass. Also, the certification only lasted three years and no longer could be renewed automatically. One had to take the test every three years, and could not have a manual certification until their 21st birthday in the United States.
Just as a side note, a “General Profile,” was an entry in a database operated by all 57 states of the United States at that time, and replaced a person’s Government ID, Driver’s License, social security card, pilot’s license, criminal record, or any other state, local, and federal governmental thing that person may have had. There was no longer need to carry a piece of paper or plastic, with or without one’s picture, around anymore. Law enforcement could always have immediate access to anyone’s picture on a tablet screen along with everything about the person, immediately related to an officer’s responsibilities of protecting the public, any time the law deemed it a necessity.
Jack Mondo was a 19-year-old with a new hand-me-down car from his parents, and he wanted a couple hours with his girlfriend in Richmond before she would have to go to her second shift job at 6pm. Her parents would come back from their Jamaican vacation at midnight, and this traffic and this timidly programmed vehicle appeared to be precluding Jack from having any alone time with her. He was one of the thousands of drivers on the same Beltway Upper Deck, Beltway Middle Deck, and Beltway Lower Deck, waiting just inside the Virginia State Line, apparently, for paint to dry, which accurately described the Beltway on unseasonably warm Saturdays in February, although paint drying could arguably be more of an assurance than getting off the Beltway. Tapping his fingers and cussing to himself was not relieving his tension any more. Realizing that he was finally out from under the manual driving ban on the Beltway, enforceable by CPU-mandate only in Maryland, he had to act!
“The traffic is offering gaps that I would kill for. These goddamned pussy-assed ‘bots in their boxes ain’t taking them!” said Jack to himself.
“Mine ain’t doing shit either, but I will! Let me …” he continued to seethe to himself. It did not matter that he had absolutely no manual driving schooling or experience at all. In his mind he knew more than these age-old devices and their long-since retired programmers knew about safety and control and so he was going to put his car into manual driving. Because traffic cops were rare at that day and age, he knew he would not ever get caught. He was over 18 and able to have controls over the car not afforded to him just under a year and a half prior, for the automatic driver allowed him to control the car like that even though he did not have legal authorization to do so. The ‘bot just cared that he was at a fully accountable age, which was still 18 in the United States.
“Access,” he demanded, which gave the all too familiar sequence of chirps which were universal among technology of the day. “Manual driving override. All liabilities and responsibilities accepted.”
He ignored all the protesting warnings and the brief, angry, klaxxon-like squawks as he grabbed hold of the wheel, accelerator, and break and began passing and weaving between the relatively stagnant cars just like what used to happen with frequency on the Capital Beltway of Old. Little did he know that fate was going to make good on his threat about killing for those speed opportunities. As it turned out, the killing would be himself. Though, it would come very close to including two more people.