This is America. We Americans get to drive any street-legal vehicle we can afford.
We have become a nation of Highlanders, Encores, Expeditions, Sequoias, Tahoes, Outbacks Suburbans, Yukons, Armadas, and the more obscure CR-V AWDs and Acura MDXs. I wonder about the secret code masked by these letters. I mean, did someone seriously sit down and say, “I know a catchy name! How about MDX?”
So here is my suggestion for the entrepreneurial among you: Somebody needs to invent a parking periscope. Yes, I know we already have technology that detects nearby vehicles. We even have technology that parks our vehicles. But I would like a simple periscope I can raise on the Acura or any other car, allowing me to see past the behemoths beside me. I want a fix on the many vessels that lurk nearby. This back-slowly-and-trust-to-fate technique has gotten tiring. Too many kids swerve confidently around me as my emerging sedan inches out across the concrete.
Parking radar has its appeal, don’t get me wrong. I would not mind shields or a tractor beam. But I’ll settle for an old-fashioned, functional periscope. As I crawl slowly blind and backwards out into various parking lots, I realize I’ve seen too much, and I’m just getting too damn old to drive on faith.
