Another day at the office
Discussion
The car was still on the drive as I left the house so at least it wouldn’t be too bad a day. I was careful to enter the encryption code onto my entry card and initiate the security stand-down sequence before I got anywhere near it. One of my colleagues spent a couple of months in hospital having his hand rebuilt last year after grabbing the door handle of his new 9 Series with the main anti-theft measures still active and that’s not the kind of holiday I fancy. I took the opportunity to have a quick walk-around looking for bird droppings, they play hell with the properties of the laser scattering paint and give a significant radar return. It was starting to rain so as soon as I got three greens on the security indicator I opened the door and dropped into the seat. The door closed behind me with a satisfying clunk and the reassuring whine of the anti-hijack bolts as they were driven into place. You really can’t beat Chinese engineering.
I’d already loaded my proposed journey schedule from the house computer so as I brought the main systems up the car was able to have a look at it. As the downlinks came on line the threat assessment package began to update the standing speed trap data with real time information on mobile traps and active camera units. As I was driving the system would uplink data from the threats detected to the ABD central clearing computer and other drivers would get the updates. The car’s systems were fairly happy with the schedule and only made a couple of route changes, one to avoid a mobile speed trap on the A217 and one for a new roadwork cluster on the A24. Going through the speed trap would mean slowing down to the point where the alternative route was quicker. The car also noted that some of my estimated segment speeds were up in licence–losing territory, well above 50, and suggested I put the ECM in active mode. I don’t really like using active jamming, the penalties are bit stiff if you get caught, but there was a busy day ahead and I needed the high speed segments to keep on time so I entered the access code and the Electronic Counter Measures Suite display shifted mode to show potential jamming targets.
I took a couple of seconds to scroll through the event log – just because the car wasn’t nicked doesn’t mean that nobody tried. A couple of people had come near it in the night, one had even lingered for a close look but the feature recognition algorithms hadn’t been able to put a name to the face. I looked briefly at the raw video but he was just another spotty youth, didn’t ring any bells.
The threat warning display was clear except for the Gatso at the end of the road. None of the locals fell for that one anymore, if it didn’t start paying its way soon it would probably be moved, so I started the engine and backed slowly off the drive.
Just another day at the office for a British motorist.
I’d already loaded my proposed journey schedule from the house computer so as I brought the main systems up the car was able to have a look at it. As the downlinks came on line the threat assessment package began to update the standing speed trap data with real time information on mobile traps and active camera units. As I was driving the system would uplink data from the threats detected to the ABD central clearing computer and other drivers would get the updates. The car’s systems were fairly happy with the schedule and only made a couple of route changes, one to avoid a mobile speed trap on the A217 and one for a new roadwork cluster on the A24. Going through the speed trap would mean slowing down to the point where the alternative route was quicker. The car also noted that some of my estimated segment speeds were up in licence–losing territory, well above 50, and suggested I put the ECM in active mode. I don’t really like using active jamming, the penalties are bit stiff if you get caught, but there was a busy day ahead and I needed the high speed segments to keep on time so I entered the access code and the Electronic Counter Measures Suite display shifted mode to show potential jamming targets.
I took a couple of seconds to scroll through the event log – just because the car wasn’t nicked doesn’t mean that nobody tried. A couple of people had come near it in the night, one had even lingered for a close look but the feature recognition algorithms hadn’t been able to put a name to the face. I looked briefly at the raw video but he was just another spotty youth, didn’t ring any bells.
The threat warning display was clear except for the Gatso at the end of the road. None of the locals fell for that one anymore, if it didn’t start paying its way soon it would probably be moved, so I started the engine and backed slowly off the drive.
Just another day at the office for a British motorist.
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