Rover and out... a talking car

WARNING lights have been flashing in Dundee this week because Dundonians are apparently the very worst in the UK when it comes to caring for their cars.

A study of MoT failure rates revealed that more than half the cars tested in the city fail to pass as roadworthy.

Of course, there are all kinds of reasons why cars fail – such as the state of the roads maintained by underfunded councils or people trying to stay within their budgets by squeezing the last few drops of life from an ageing vehicle.

But that hasn’t stopped some experts from suggesting that the answer for Dundee and the rest of us is Electronic Vehicle Identification: cars with microchips that sense if the motor’s brakes are a bit spongy or you are hammering across the potholes of the Kingsway above the legal speed limit. Then, your car will grass you up to the authorities.

The last time we considered a talking car it was KITT from Knight Rider, a chatty Pontiac Firebird that helped David Hasselhoff fight crime – largely by murmuring suavely ‘it could be a trap, Michael’, and then being proved correct two scenes later.

In future, your car may be fighting its enemy within: ie, you. ‘Trying to spin out a fiver’s worth of petrol again, cheapskate?’ it might kvetch as you zoom past a service station.

Or during the 8am tailbacks it might snipe: ‘Going for some sort of record consumption of lemon bonbons this morning?’ Or simply: ‘ **** Sake! Not the Coldplay album again; you’re making my in-car stereo feel like shock jock hour in an old folks home.’