Who’s the world’s greatest engineer? No, it isn’t the person who built the tallest tower, the longest tunnel, the biggest monument, nor the toughest ships. I’ll give you a hint: That person is much closer to you than you think.
That person is none other than the one who engineered YOU, the person who gave birth to a complex, intelligent, sometimes brilliant, sometimes stupid, human being as you. Of course, not to take anything away from the other half of the tag team that was responsible for your existence, but the person who carried you for more or less 9 months in her womb to make sure you came out just about right deserves the first mention in the credits shortlist.
That’s our mothers, who willingly, and lovingly, allowed their own bodies to become the “assembly hubs” for Mother Nature’s “flagship models” of the sentient world—all 9 billion of us currently in circulation.
Even years after giving birth to us, our mothers—the doting engineers that they are—continue to look after our welfare. And ultimately, long after they themselves have passed on, we continue to be protected by their legacy of nurture and caring.
That legacy extends all the way to the very vehicles we ride and drive in. Automotive history has shown that women—and moms—have played a big part in the development of vehicle engineering and safety designs.
From wipers to crash test dummies
Canadian Charlotte Bridgwood—a mother of three who went from vaudeville actress to inventor—patented the first electrically powered windshield wiper in 1917, improving previous manually operated wipers such as the one patented by Mary Anderson in 1905. She was also the mother of silent screen star Florence Lawrence who followed her mother’s footsteps by inventing various automotive accessories herself.
A mother of five, Bertha Benz was best known as the business partner and wife of automobile inventor Carl Benz. On August 5, 1888, she was the first person to drive an internal combustion engine-powered automobile over a long distance, field testing the Benz Patent-Motorwagen. Along that 105-km journey, she invented the brake lining and solved several practical issues. In doing so, she brought the Patent-Motorwagen worldwide attention and got the company its first sales.
In 2004, I interviewed the soft-spoken Birgitta Trommler from Gothenburg, Sweden. A vehicle crash analysis engineer and a mom of two kids (by now, Axel must be 26 and Ebba 23), Birgitta specialized in automotive safety for children. I remembered her expertise and “motherly” aura when she talked about the harmony between automotive technology and vehicle safety.
In 2010, I wrote about Laura Thackray, biomechanical engineer at the Volvo Cars Safety Center in Gothenburg, Sweden, who had developed a unique computer model of a pregnant crash test dummy called “Linda.” Through numerous crash simulations, Linda had provided a better understanding of the kinds of injuries pregnant women and their unborn babies could sustain in crashes.
Mame’s lessons
Let’s call it maternal instinct. A mother’s touch, indeed, accounts for a lot for that miracle of modern transport we call the automobile. The most remarkable thing about it all is that a mother doesn’t need to necessarily be in the car or even in the driver’s seat in order to work her wonders.
I present to you, as a prime example of that, my own mother. From the age of 6, I was taught by my “Mame” Evelyn how to safely cross a street. Her motherly instincts may have also helped us avoid a potentially fatal accident.
Sometime when I was 15, Mame and I were walking by the side of the street in our subdivision, when a speeding car suddenly pulled up behind us. Mame had cat-quick reflexes, and she was able to push me off
me off to the side while she herself jumped further onto the sidewalk a split second before the car whizzed past us mere inches from where we stood.
I was a skittish adolescent, frequently playing with friends in our village streets. When we played taguan (hide-and-seek), I’d often climb up trees or cling to the door railings of moving Asian utility vehicles (AUVs). Mame would often admonish me for pulling such dangerous stunts.
Mame was teaching me how to be street smart. She was programming this “young vehicle” as a “defensive pedestrian,” so that even before I could ease my butt onto the driver’s seat, I could be well aware of how the other side—the non-drivers, pedestrians, other road users, and even stray animals—would behave.
She taught me where all the safe spots in the streets could be found—the pedestrian overpasses, the crosswalks, the sidewalks, the concrete posts that could serve as safety barriers between me and an out-of-control truck or bus. She taught me not to overly trust the stop signals before crossing streets, stressing that I should be, first and foremost, situationally aware of what was actually happening on the street at any given time.
Oh, how she would have hated seeing me staring at my cellphone while walking on the streets! I could imagine her snatching the phone from my hands, dressing me down for not paying full attention to where I was walking.
She always told me to avoid walking with my back turned to oncoming traffic (“always walk facing oncoming traffic, so you know if a car is headed directly to your spot”). She cautioned against walking on unlit or unfamiliar streets (“If the more familiar or well-lit route takes you longer to walk, so be it. Better you arrive home a bit late than never arriving home at all”). She taught me how to maintain my balance while standing inside the trains—even without holding the handrails.
When I eventually learned how to drive and got my driver’s license, she continued to guide me as my strict backseat driver. She was my speed governor, my very own traffic enforcer, who constantly reminded me to keep in mind how other road users would be behaving on the streets—other mothers and their children crossing the roads. She kept me grounded in responsible driving, telling me that every time I drove out of the garage and onto the roads, my life, and those of my passengers and especially pedestrians (and other living beings like animals crossing the road), “are on the lane.” Every split-second decision that I, as a driver, would make would have a lifelong impact on everyone else’s life.
That’s what I have been trying to pay forward as a motoring writer for nearly 30 years. The lessons I was taught by my Mame (who would have been taught those same lessons by her own mother and father) I share now with you, dear readers.
Mame is now 84 years old and house-bound. And though she can’t go with me anymore on my trips, I can say she has done her job well as far as being that constant voice in my head goes. I will always be that 6-year-kid trying to cross a busy street. Mame is always beside me, gently reminding me to “stop, look, and listen.”
