The new "bionic" man/woman is you and your car.

"Bionic" is defined in the dictionary as "having normal biological capability or performance enhanced by or as if by electronic or electromechanical devices."

I submit for your approval that's us and our cars.

You and your car are pretty much one entity. As I am with mine. We get into our car and start it up and drive to wherever we want to go. We're so used to driving -- assuming we're older than, say, sixteen -- that we don't even think about the dynamics of driving the car. We are so much a part of it that we turn the way we want to turn, stop and start, make our way through traffic, as if we were guiding our own selves, as if on foot. But we're not on foot. We're in our cars. And our cars weigh at least ten times what we weigh. And they move a lot faster than we do. When we're in our cars, we're like the bionic man or woman: many times faster and more powerful than our normal selves.

But I think we often forget that and think that we/us/our car is just you or me. And that's what gets us in trouble and, in the worst of circumstances, kills other people.

When we are are in our cars, we are sort of "bionic". We're part human, part machine. Our decision to turn left is performed perfectly by our car. Our decision to speed up or to slow down again is immediately reflected by our car. It's almost part of us, or we're almost part of it. The car performs functions we can't -- especially speed (we're slow of foot as humans) --but it does just what we tell it to with our manipulations of gears and pedals and such.

And when we find the car of our dreams --that vintage Jag or that that 60s Corvette -- the car seems to mirror our reflection of ourselves, seems to embody all we wanted to be or still want to be, or at least how we want to be seen. And when we get behind the wheel, when we put a foot down on the pedal for the first time, it's like we know this is who we should have been all along!
That Jag is so smooth, so powerful! That Corvette is so strong, so assertive!

The car we choose to drive, once we're older and have the money to buy one but also old enough to understand ourselves, says a lot about who we think we are, or who we want to be, or maybe who we thought we wanted to be when we couldn't afford such cars.

But that's beside the point. The point is that whatever car (or truck) you choose, you bond with it as you drive it. You become one with it. When you're behind the wheel, you are one with your vehicle. If you're a calm driver, you'll probably drive the speed limit. If you're sort of a hyper-active type, you'll probably speed. If you're angry, you'll threaten other drivers: road rage. Whoever you are when you get behind the wheel determines what your vehicle will do when you're in control of it. It is not just your alter-ego but a manifestation of who you really are.

You need to understand that and keep your vehicle, just like your id or your ego, under control.

I knew a man who owned a Rolls Royce, the acknowledged king of cars. (Not sure if they even make them any more.) It cost something like $200,000. He'd inherited it from old British kin.
He was afraid to drive it because of what it would say about him if he did. I think it sat in his garage for nearly twenty years before he finally sold it. The point being that it wasn't him.
He would have felt like an imposter driving a car like that. (He drove a Toyota.)

The car you own, whatever it may be, becomes one with you. Once you're on the road, you and the car are one, maneuvering through traffic, finding parking spaces, etc. What we tend to forget is that we're flesh and muscle and bone while the car is metal and electronics. We too often let our emotions dictate our driving -- hence road rage -- while forgetting that we're driving a car.
We drive too fast, we cut people off; we do all the things we can't do as humans, but that, if we have the right car, we can do with a simple stomp on the gas pedal.

I think what we need to do is picture ourselves as we are: bi-pedal types, pedestrians, who have been blessed -- and cursed -- with these vehicles that let us go so much faster than we otherwise could have but that also entice us to be jerks and bullies and downright psychopaths. We need to realize that we aren't our cars. And our cars aren't us. They're tools we use to get around, not extensions of our own personalities.

Imagine a world where cars didn't exist. Not so hard to do, since they were invented only about a hundred years ago. What would you have been like then? When you and your car weren't bonded as one, when you had to walk everywhere or maybe flag down a wagon to take you to town. Would you have been a different kind of person? Or the same minus a car? Hmmm . . .