Pre-Safety Check

I’m about to have an automotive breakdown. After waiting six months to get my new car with all the latest safety upgrades including airbags that protect everything from side impact on my head to spillage from my coffee mug, I’ve just found out that I’m missing the best stuff on the market. Mercedes Benz is now installing a revolutionary safety system called “Pre-Safe” in an entire line of cars. In just seconds Pre-Safe prepares the vehicle for a crash. It’s a whole fleet of cars with anticipatory anxiety. As a gal whose motor skills on and off the road are shaky best, Pre-Safe sounds like the perfect death-defying feature. In fact, I wish I had it for all the aspects of my life.

Here’s how Pre-Safe works. Stability sensors detect if you’re on a crash course to disaster – if the car is about to swerve or skid or if you’re slamming on the brakes. The car then reflexively prepares to soften the blow by moving the seats back, raising the head rests, tightening the seatbelts and closing the sunroof so you won’t be catapulted like a human rocket. It does everything but call your insurance agent.

Think of it as having your mother as a permanent back seat driver. In fact, my Mom is the human version of Pre-Safe. With her hands clenched to the armrest she’ll whine: “Do you have to go so fast? The driver in the red Honda looks stupid, change lanes! Watch out for the mattress up ahead! Pull over, I need to go to the bathroom!” Talk about preventing accidents.

The Pre-Safe system heralds the next wave of technology. First inventors focused on making life easier with stuff like blow dryers and microwaves and pre-washed denim. Now the new frontier will be pre-safety gadgetry: appliances that keep bad things from happening. Like scissors that warn: “No running!” Or a refrigerator that ejects junk food (Watch out for that flying cheesecake!) Or a swimming pool that won’t let you in until you’ve fully digested. Or a TiVo that absolutely refuses to record Jerry Springer. Or a fork that tells you when you’ve eaten enough, “Not another bite, Missy!” Or a “Personal Portal” formerly known as a front door that calculates temperature and barometric pressure before issuing the appropriate admonition:

“You are not leaving this house until you…
A. Button Your Coat
B. Take an Umbrella
C. Find out if your date has honorable intentions and if he doesn’t, does he have a big bank account.

The Personal Portal will come with an optional “Yo, Girlfriend” Mirror. It’s a mirror that speaks the brutal truth thus preventing you from leaving the house if your jeans show a panty line or your butt looks like the broadside of a barn.

Of course Pre-Safety appliances would spawn a whole new industry for anti-Pre-Safe devices, known as TCW’s – Throw Caution to the Wind deflectors. The way cool insiders will call them “tic-wah.” TCW’s would use the latest in WiFi to counteract the negative vibes of Pre-Safe devices. The top of the line “Kryptonite” model would universally neutralize all those pesky warnings.

But, I get ahead of myself. As with all great ideas there are those early adopters. I wanted to be one. So I headed over to buy myself a Mercedes S-class car with Pre-Safe technology. Unfortunately, all that new safety comes with a price. A hefty one. More than $70,000 a car. I would have paid it too, except for that anti-bankruptcy device on my wallet. Better known as an empty bank account.

www.mercedes-benz.com
www.safety.com