About nothing - an intro to the futuring of global travel

Since my wife and I moved to the USA, we've noticed a lot of cultural differences, some better, some worse, most strange since it had been several years since I've lived in the USA.  You can never truly know a place until you live there, and the USA has become a difficult place to live in. 

In Europe, the housing costs are high but you are buying a concrete property that will last for hundreds of years.  In the USA, a new home for the same cost will fall down in 40 years. In Europe, they have an amazingly low-cost health insurance system that is also efficient.  Here in the US, our system is expensive, hard to navigate, and designed to funnel large amounts of money into the healthcare system.  These are just some of the differences we've noticed culturally speaking.  There have also been some technological differences as well as legal ones.

One of the most interesting ones that reflected the social differences between the USA and Europe was the Lane Assist feature that many newer vehicles have.  When I rented a Peugeot in Brussels, I enjoyed playing with the lane assist feature by letting go of the wheel and ping-ponging around the lane. Alternatively, it was interesting to feel how much pressure I had to apply to force the steering wheel to turn enough to change lanes (a lot!) without using the turn signal.  

Alternatively, here in the USA, I rented a car that had this feature.  The feature on the American car embodies the American Ideal, "You Can't Tell Me What To Do!".  It offers little more than a suggestion before it gives up completely when you change lanes without signaling.  As for it stopping you from running off the road? Nope! No "ping-ponging" here, you're going right off the road with maybe a little annoying beep as everyone in your car dies screaming, except grandpa, he's sleeping and driving.

There are similar differences with mass transit, air travel, buses, trains...I hope to be able to share some of the experiences my wife and I have had traveling the world and I hope to be able to use that insight into their culture to speculate on how different methods of future travel or the process of traveling might look...IN THE FUTURE!!!!!  :)