| Drive |
June 2, 2017
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| On this day, he had to give up driving a car. He had been driving for more than 30 years. 15 years ago, the auto-drive system was invented. At that time, he hadn't thought that the time that he couldn't drive himself would come. 10 years ago, the first auto-drive car was sold in public and ran on the road. The owner of the car made a toast with champagne alone in his car, which had no steering wheel. It was broadcasted worldwide. 5 years ago, auto-drive cars exceeded 50 percent of all the whole cars. After that, car insurance between auto-drive cars and manual cars started to separate. Almost all of the car accidents were caused by human errors, so manual cars' insurance was higher than auto-drive cars'. One year later, it doubled, a year after that, tripled; and last year, it became 10 times of auto-drive cars'. Nowadays, only a few people like him drove by themselves. And last year, there was a big incident. A man who got very angry at his girlfriend breaking up with him ran over a lot of people with his manual car. If the car was an auto-drive car, the system would have stopped the car before hitting the people. After the incident, the government decided to stop to let people drive manually, and set the limitation of it at the end of March. At first, when this policy was announced, he was still optimistic, thinking that there might be some loopholes. First, he thought about an emergency system. Pilots of air planes can cancel the  auto-pilot system in an emergency, like with trouble of a machine. Some auto-drive cars had this system and had a steering wheel. He could set 'emergency' every time, he thought. But the government also banned this system. In an emergency, cars would automatically pull over to the side of the road, and emergency services would be called. He asked his friend, a car engineer, whether he could change something. The friend said, "I could, but if you change something in your car, and if the car hit somebody, your insurance wouldn't cover it, and you would go bankrupt. And, I would be arrested." He looked so sad, so the friend added, "You can drive on a racing circuit as a test driver or something like that. In the races, no auto-drive cars are used." The friend laughed. He didn't laugh and told his wife about this. His wife said that it was too dangerous and if he did, she would divorce him. He gave that idea up. On this day, the 31st of March, he took a day off from work. He woke up early in the morning. He wanted to drive as long as he could. Midnight was the time limit of driving by drivers. His wife got up early and made a sandwich for him for his car trip. She said, "Good luck. And enjoy your last day driving." He almost cried. He thought that there would be some drivers thinking the same as him, but the road was empty. He aimed to the seaside. Soon the sun rose. It was a fine day and he was thankful to be this lucky. He enjoyed driving to the sea, and then along the seaside. He stopped at the beach for a rest and made coffee. He ate a late lunch that his wife made. As he got up early and he couldn't sleep well the night before, he became sleepy and took a short nap. After a while, he woke up by the knocking sound at the window. A middle-aged man like him, was standing there. He opened the window. The man said, "I'm sorry to disturb you but I have a favor to ask, if you don't mind." His face was serious. He got out of his car. There was another car by his car. It was an old manual car. The guy started to speak: He had been driving this car for more than 20 years. This car was like his family so he wanted to do a funeral for this car, and wanted him to attend it. He liked that the guy liked his car, so he agreed with it. The guy said some words like a priest for his car and put some flowers in the car. Then they pushed the car over the side of the bank. The car started to sink and the guy was crying. He felt very sad looking at the car sinking in the sea. The guy asked him to drive him to the nearest bus stop. He asked the guy where he would like to go. It was the next city over to his, so he proposed to the guy to take him home. The guy thanked him very much. On their way back, they talked excitedly about memories of their driving: how they got their licenses, how happy when they had their first car, how upset when they had their first car accident; even being charged by the police with speeding and other traffic violations were now good memories for them. It was about 11:30 when they came to the city side. He thought that he couldn't meet the limit time, but he didn't care if he was the first person of the violation of the new policy. The guy said that he would willingly pay the charge. They both laughed. Soon he found that the road was crowded at this late hour. As he proceeded, the number of cars were increasing, and now it became over a hundred cars around his car. The guy excitedly shouted, "Look! All the cars are driven by drivers!" He looked over at the car next him. The driver looked back at him smiling and gave a thumbs up. He felt his mind lift up. The guy rolled down his window, and lifted his upper body out of the window, and started to wave his hands at the others while shouting his excitement. Midnight came. They started to sound their horns. There were various types of horns sounding in the midnight air, and it lasted for a long, long time. |
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*ban :Φ~·ι
*pull over :i^]θEΤͺjΉΜeΙρι
*bankrupt :|Y
*gave a thumbs up :ewπΛ«o΅ObhΜ`πμι