The new electric cars are something to behold! Their performance is remarkable, but it’s the array of cameras and sensors that blows me away. This is good stuff, but I can’t help wondering what the variety of stress is doing to your body. After all, trusting the car is new to all of us.

Say that for just going up and down the road in a self-driving car, we assign a stress level of 100 when everything is controlled and predictable. If other cars drift into you, and the safety system takes over and applies the brakes or steers toward another lane, the surprise may cause a spike of 200 or more. Suppose that a few of these events have occurred , and you now have stress continuously. If you drive the freeways for the next 20 years at the elevated stress level, what is it doing to your nervous system and heart? I don’t know the answer. It was just something I was thinking about.

Dave Thomas

10/29/2026