DOES INGENUITY=PROGRESS?

NOTES OF CONCERN…

  …Jack Blair

              Does Ingenuity Always Mean Progress?

One used to buy an automobile, probably from an American company, and it was pretty simple.

Two or four doors. Four wheels. A steering wheel. Roll down windows was the way you conditioned your air, and some people splurged on a radio.

The car salesman made sure your new wheels were gassed up and ready for you to proudly drive it through town. He handed you two keys and the paperwork.

If you weren’t sure how to get where  you wanted to go you looked at a map.

And just to be safe you usually stopped at the local hardware store and had keys made for all the drivers in your household as well as a few to store in case of lost keys. They charge you 25 cents per key.

Oh, and the car probably cost $5,000.

Take a great leap to 2015.

Cars still have two or four doors. Except they have airbags in them, the windows go up and down automatically, your seat moves up, down, and tilts when you touch the right button. They have curtain airbags, they have the highest quality surround sound, they have airbags inside the steering wheel and some of the newer versions even talk to you if you drift out of your lane, your driving too fast or too slow, or someone is sneaking up on you in your blind spot. And if you want to back up, you have a television camera on the rear of your car so you can see everything around you without turning your head. The list of new stuff could be much longer but lets hope I successfully showed you what has changed,

Now a huge percentage of Americans drive foreign cars.

And in what is probably an understatement, your car probably cost you in excess of $20,000.

When you are ready to leave, the salesman does not fill up your gas tank. You probably have enough to get you to the closest gas station.

He does still give you two keys. They don’t look like the old keys because they are filled with computer chips that operate most of the new toys in your new car.

And you don’t stop at the hardware store because only the manufacturer of your special keys can duplicate them. And the cost to duplicate the each key I was given with my car was quoted to be $350.

So I use one set of keys and my wife probably keeps the backup set in the safe. When we travel we always have to take both sets so if we lose one we can get home. Because, they also tell you at the dealership that should you need to have a $350 key made it can be done in California, takes a couple days, and then has to be shipped to you wherever you are. So what was a day trip to see grandma can turn into a week waiting for a key. And of course, you have to have your car towed somewhere while you wait. And if grandma lives in a small one bedroom, you also get to run up a motel bill.

I learned something new about these great new cars a week ago when I was involved in a fender bender and had to take my car to a body shop to be repaired. My insurance company kindly provides me with a rental car to use while my car is being repaired.

I pick up my rental car, a nice little number with fewer bells and whistles, but hey, I have wheels. And they gave me two keys with a sign attached to them saying I would be responsible for a $250 fee for each key I lose.

I didn’t notice until I got home that both keys were on the same keychain and the special keychain was made in such a way that you could not separate the keys. Absolutely no way to put one away and use one.

I was sure this had to be in error so I called the rental company.

No, they assured me it was all part of a plan to keep the keys together. I remarked that would be silly because if I lost my key I actually would have lost my keys, both  of them, and I would owe them $500 rather than $250.

They assured me I had made the correct assumption. In response to my question why anyone would do that, I was told no one had ever asked and they had no idea.

So if you saw me walking more than usual and did not see me driving much during the time my car was being repaired, it was because I worried about losing my keys, both of them at the same time.

Then it came to me. There was a method to their madness. I have to have a car. They rent me a car and charge me a daily fee. I don’t drive the car because I am afraid of the key fine. They get the car back, hardly driven at all, no real mileage, and they get to do it all over again with the next guy who needs to rent a car.

Marketing genius at work.

Never underestimate American ingenuity.