George Orwell’s Big Brother has nothing on my Buick. In his novel, Nineteen Eighty-four, citizens were constantly told, “Big Brother is watching you,” Today we have the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, FISA, to worry about, but my Buick with its “MyBuick” feature, in collusion with its OnStar feature, is way ahead of them.
George Orwell’s Big Brother has nothing on my Buick. In his novel, Nineteen Eighty-four, citizens were constantly told, “Big Brother is watching you,” Today we have the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, FISA, to worry about, but my Buick with its “MyBuick” feature, in collusion with its OnStar feature, is way ahead of them.
First I knew of those spying eyes was when my unfathomable Android beeped its “notification” beep and I didn’t have a thing scheduled for the next two weeks. Android—good friend that it is—told me the pressure on my left front tire needed immediate attention. That It was 24 psi, much too low.
Surprised, I ran to the window to see who was out there checking my tire. No one was there. Beyond curious now, I checked the tire pressure myself. Yep, 24 psi according to my tire pressure gauge—which maybe I don’t need any more?
Fast forward to a month later. I received an e-mail message that my monthly report was available at MyBuick.com. Curious, I logged onto the website, where in order to get my report, I was sent to OnStar’s website. The OnStar feature came with my Buick and of course, when you have something you’ve never had before and it has advantages you’ve never had before—like people checking your tire pressure at odd hours of the day—you get kind’a used to those things. So I signed up for OnStar to continue after the trial period.
It turns out OnStar and MyBuick—in cahoots, obviously—are on my tail 24/7. My report was amazing. Not good amazing. Scary amazing. They know everything I do in that sporty Buick Regal TurboCharge of mine. Not only that, they score me on it.
They reported how many miles I drove that month. No problem there; my speedometer tells me that. But how many times I “hard-braked?” and how many minutes I sat idle? and get this one! how many times I “hard-accelerated!” What the heck else would you do with a big powerful Buick and its amazing TurboCharge engine?
About the hard braking, did they see that black SUV shoot out of a side street making a right turn against a red light when I was going through on green? What if I hadn’t slammed on the brakes? Did they send that driver a message about running red lights? Does he even have OnStar? And when that gal in the white Lexus cut in front of me to get to the left-turn lane—was I s’posed to shove it in reverse to get out of her way?
They grade you on all this and that’s not all, also hours of late-night driving. Number of times you drove over eighty. And then they want to know if you’d like to share this information with your insurance agent. Are they crazy? What’s considered hard braking anyway, or hard-acceleration? Totally not fair!
Big Brother only watched you, not your vehicle. FISA only listens if you’re on the phone with a foreign spy. OnStar and MyBuick are way ahead of the spy game. The stuff that’s out there in cyberspace, diving down into my phone and my laptop, is being tracked 24/7, but it’s not cyberspace I’m worried about. It’s me wheeling down the freeway, being watched for hard braking; me, sitting at the stop light being watched for hard acceleration-ing; me, waiting in the drive-through lane at Taco Bell being watched for idling.
There’s only one thing to do. Get in my big, beautiful Buick—TurboCharged, by the way—and drive away. The heck with those spying eyes.
