Altogether too many things in this world ding at you. My phone, microwave, iron, fire alarm and watch all ding at me. A lot of the time I have to figure out which of them it is. All dings have significance but the sound's immediate effect is just to irritate me.
It means I should do something, or have failed to do something. Car's dings are the worst. The one I drive for work, not mine or I would have silenced it somehow, has more dings than I've had hot dinners.
It dings continuously if I haven't put on my seat belt, if my passenger hasn't put on theirs, if a door is open, if the trunk is open, if the handbrake is on and even if I get out of the car and the key is still inside. It dings if my passenger takes off their seat belt as we arrive at our destination. If I fail to put on my belt for too long it dings with absolute hysteria. I would much prefer a ding that tells me my lipstick has faded and needs reapplying or my hair needs combing because I never forget my seat belt.
I don't need a car to harass me. I don't mind it being occasionally informative, but its concern for my well being is completely over the top. I wouldn't buy a car that is such a nag. Unfortunately deactivating the ding device would probably result in it refusing to drive. Worse, all new cars seem to be fitted with this annoyance.
At the very least a ding, which is an alert, should be informative. It should say: 'door', 'trunk', 'seat belt', 'handbrake' or 'don't forget your key you idiot'.
I blame the insurance companies. They will do anything to avoid paying out and therefore have stipulated that all these safety devices should be installed. This means if one is found not to be working at the time of an accident, aha, I bet it's one more reason for them not to pay up.
The same goes for fluorescent work clothes. They are everywhere and global to boot. I shudder at the thought of individualism being replaced by uniformity because we are being dictated to by business interests. Imagine if your employee falls off a roof without his fluorescent vest on and the insurance company won't pay up because the ground didn't see him coming.
These outfits don't suddenly make the wearer more safety conscious in the way that Superman's suit allows him to fly. I personally don't believe in protecting idiots. I wouldn't go out of my way to hurt one but I confess to being sick and tired of avoiding pedestrians who attempt to incorporate themselves into my tyre treads.
I am a great believer in Darwin's survival of the fittest. Modern society is just not practising it anymore. Instead it is protecting idiots and thus allowing them to breed more of their own kind. The world's population has jumped from 3 billion in the 1960's to 7 billion today. Modern medicine, better nutrition and lack of world wars are responsible. Oddly that great boon to women's emancipation, the contraceptive pill, appears to have had little impact on the blowout of the global population.
Why then are we protecting idiots? Don't we want more intelligent, responsible humans? Strangely idiots come in all varieties. They can be university professors, successful entrepreneurs and even charitable types. Yet, they may still not take responsibility for their own safety and frankly this galls me. I like a well rounded intellect that covers all the bases.
I admit that some safety wear, of the fluorescent kind, is helpful; such as on road workers and builders where they need to be highly visible. However, there are plenty of jobs in which they are useless.
I had a job at a company with rigid safety rules. When I needed to walk between any of the buildings, I had to wear a fluorescent jacket and walk on striped markings leading to the next building. I was so busy following the lines that I had to glance up to make sure trucks that were meant to avoid me on this special pathway, weren't going to hit me anyway. I trust no one. I don't need to wear a stupid jacket to cross a road because I take responsibility for myself.
The second day I was there, one of the trucks had just exited the driveway going no more than 10kph and managed to spill a large portion of its load of plaster powder all over the road. Safety regulations do not a brain make.
When I applied for an office job at a recruitment agency I was forced to watch a safety video . It was about how not to cause or have accidents in an office; you know, not to put boxes in front of the fire exit; not to throw hot things into the waste bin. It was so mind bogglingly banal, so insulting that when I came out to Reception I asked when they were going to make the adult version.
You can inform people about activities that may prove dangerous but it won't stop fools from doing them. Such people don't believe that bad things will happen to them. They are the kind who stand outside in lightening storms and think the other guy will get struck. What a shock they get when it's them.
As for dings, this is just the beginning of machines telling us what to do. I think it's time to tell car manufacturers exactly how much and about what they allow a car to ding us. Gradually our wonderful technological devices are being used to annoy us. I really don't think this was the idea when it all began.
Why must these infringements into our personal space be part and parcel of technology? We're only just at the start of the technological revolution and now is the best time to make rules about what we allow it to do. Don't leave it too late or it will become too complex to achieve and the old excuse of "We can't do anything about it, it's how it's programmed" will always be the comeback.
We are not only being annoyed but also losing our freedom to these advancements by the minute. Do your bit and say something to the manufacturers of technologies while they are still human beings.
END.
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