Smart car

There are plenty of folks who are smarter than I am. Any sixth-grader who can do his math homework without help from a parent or the Internet already has me beat.

Heck, even Miss Kitty is, in so many ways, more cunning than her lap-provider. She has even taken to barking at me when I don't do what she expects. I think she learned that from the dog next door.

It bothers me, however, that my car has more brains than I do.

For all the years I've been permitted to drive a motor vehicle -- tractor, pickup, family sedan, even a midlife-crisis Jeep -- I have always considered anything with a motor to be a machine. Nothing more. Nothing less.

My car, which I acquired a year ago, is different. I knew when I bought it that it had a computer. Most cars do these days. But I'll swear my car has artificial intelligence too.

Imagine you're driving along an unfamiliar road and you see an intersection ahead. You're pretty sure this is where you need to make a left turn, according to the directions a friend gave you. So you begin to ease the car over to the turning lane when you hear a voice say, "Uh-uh. You don't want to do that."

You can imagine how relieved I was to discover my car's navigation system was talking to me. I thought I had an uninvited passenger until I figured it out.

My car has many ways of communicating with me. It can call me on my cell phone. I'm not making this up. My cell phone rings, and when I answer a voice -- that same voice that told me not to make a left turn -- tells me I ought to check the pressure in the rear left tire.

I had to ask if the voice meant left facing the front of the car, or left facing the trunk.

"Humans!"

I'll swear that's what my car said.

My car also has a display in the dash behind the steering wheel that can tell me how far I can go on the remaining fuel in the tank, how far I can go at my current rate of speed, when I last changed the oil, when it's time for a tuneup, which door is ajar, when the trunk is open and goodness knows what else.

There's a system for backing up that tells me when I'm about to hit something behind the car, like another car or the trash cans I put out the night before so I wouldn't forget to take them to the curb. (Note: If you hit a trash can just right with your rear bumper, the trash can will find its own way to the street. Trust me on this.)

The other morning I got in my car and started the engine. When I put the car in reverse, a loud bell went "Bong! Bong!" I scanned the dash to see what message I should be reading, but all the warning lights went off. This happened every time I started the car. My wife was with me on one of those occasions. "What's all that noise?" she asked. "Haven't a clue," I replied.

As it turns out, there is a screen in the middle of the dash that displays a map when you're using the navigation system. Otherwise, it shows what radio station or CD you're listening to, what song is being played and who made the recording.

I don't pay much attention to that display, but after several mornings of starting the car and hearing the "Bong! Bong!" I noticed something new at the bottom of the screen: "NAV MESSAGE."

So I pushed the "NAV" button, and, sure enough, there was the message that was setting off the alarm: "You have driven 3,000 miles since your last oil change."

Checking the message also cleared it. So I had a couple of bongless mornings. Then it started again. This time I knew what to look for. Sure enough, there was the note: "NAV MESSAGE." What now?

"The navigation system DVD is dusty and cannot be read properly. Please clean it."

Have you ever tried to remove the DVD from your car's GPS system? The instructions in my owner's manual cover 42 pages.

Shouldn't a car this smart be able to do its own dusting?

jsullivan@semissourian.com<I>