So you thought Watson, IBM’s Jeopardy-champion computer, was hot stuff when it bested two of the quiz show’s most renowned contestants?  

Big deal. Can Watson drive a car when he (or she, or it) doesn’t even know what country Toronto is in? More to the point, can Watson drive a car, taking directions from Alex Trebek? I’m not talking about spoken directions. I’m talking about reading his mind and going where his thoughts direct it.

Well, some German  scientists have developed a car that can be guided by your thoughts, and it has me a little scared.

The Germans have been wowing me with their technological achievements ever since they came out with the Volkswagen Beetle — the one with the empty space under the hood, an air-cooled four-banger under the trunk lid, and a space behind the back seat with the approximate capacity of a mini-storage bin.

It could run all day pedal to the metal — about 70 mph, if you believed its speedometer —  and was unstoppable in snow and mud. In those weather conditions it was faster than a Lincoln or Caddy, or even a ‘Vette. It was also a death trap in a collision or a rollover situation, but it carried me safely through the gasoline crisis of the ’70s.

Since then, we’ve seen cars that can be steered through the front and the rear wheels, cars that can park themselves, and cars that will call for help when you’re in an accident.

But I wasn’t prepared for the latest development from Deutschland: A car that can be steered by your thoughts.

The magazine Science Digest reports that scientists from Freie Universität in Berlin have developed such a car and tested it at Tempelhof Airport, where it apparently managed to dodge the Lufthansa jets rolling down the runway.

It works this way: Sensors are able to get into your head and distinguish brain waves for “left,” “right,” “accelerate” and “brake.” These sensors then pass along the commands to the steering system. The scientists say there’s only a “slight delay” between thought and execution.

Miss Peggy and I combined make a complete driver. I know how to find places, and she knows how to drive. As age affects my vision and reflexes, I leave more and more of the driving to her. But she still relies on me to tell her where to turn, and I’m constantly forgetting to tell her. She can read my mind in most other matters, but not when it comes to road directions, especially in a strange city.

Mind-to-steering communication might be quicker, but I’m suspicious of machines that act independently of physical directions. I remember the time I was nearly run off the road by a semi that was passing me at night. I was driving a Lincoln Mark VI with headlights that dimmed automatically when they sensed an approaching set of headlights. As the semi was about three-fourths of the way around me, the Lincoln’s electric eye saw a light at a service station down the road and mistook it for oncoming headlights. It blinked automatically. The truck driver took that as the standard signal that it was now safe to pull over. Fortunately, there was a shoulder wide enough for me to dodge the trailer.

So let’s imagine I’m cruising down the Interstate, my cruise control set on 70, the legal limit. A semi in front of me is barely able to maintain 60 on an uphill grade. I use mental telepathy to tell my car to move into the left lane and pass. I’m about three-fourths of the way around it when suddenly a Cadillac CTS-V, pumping out 556 horsepower, comes out of nowhere at a speed of approximately Mach 2. 

My first thought is “I oughta put on brakes and let that sucker buy me a new car.” My second thought is “but then he’d knock me under the wheels of this semi, and I would come out looking like a flattened possum.”

The car, reading my first thoughts, applies the brakes, and the Caddy super coupe turns my rear-end into metal confetti and me into flat-out history.

Or picture another scenario: I am driving past the local college and a stiff March breeze is blowing. I’m trying to concentrate on the road ahead, but a gaggle of miniskirted coeds on the street corner suddenly is struck by an uplifting breeze. My brain becomes scrambled and the car suddenly behaves like a hound caught in a fire-ant bed. My car finally plows into a pyracantha hedge, and I’m left with the problem of explaining this to Miss Peggy.

“What were you thinking?” she’d ask.

And the best I’d be able to come with would be, “Honey, when I got to that intersection the traffic was so noisy I couldn’t hear myself think.”

I must confess that my mind wanders when I’m driving, and at such times my car is on autopilot. I can imagine myself on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan trying to wash down a pastie with unsweetened tea and thinking, “Boy, I’d sure love to be back in Fairhope at the Original Oyster House.”

Would the computer-guided car suddenly make a U-turn and head back to God’s Country? It might be the logical thing to do, but I’m not sure I’d want a car that instantly obeyed my every whim. 

Better to be riding shotgun with Miss Peggy. She would steer me toward the nearest Applebees. If I cut my eyes toward a miniskirted cutie, she’d know it through her extra-sensory perception, but at least she wouldn’t drive us into the pyracantha.

Readers may write Gene Owens at 315 Lakeforest Circle, Anderson SC 29625 or  at WadesDixieco@AOL.com.