Six ways Knight Rider predicted the future.
For Knight Rider creator Glen Larson, who has died aged 77, he will have at least seen some, if sadly not all, of his imaginations become reality.
The show’s tagline, uttered over that irresistible theme tune, declares the show “a shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a man who does not exist”.
Like David Hasselhoff’s Michael Knight character, much of the technology found under the bonnet of Knight Industries Two Thousand – Knight’s car, known simply as Kitt – didn’t exist.
At least, not in 1982.
Here are some of the most memorable – many of which are found in many cars on the road today.
Self-driving/Auto collision avoidance.
Michael Knight normally had a lot on his plate, and so it was generally useful to be able to palm off some simple tasks – like driving – to Kitt.
To prevent the obvious pitfall of crashing into things, Kitt would deploy auto collision avoidance technology. The car would scan what was happening around it to make sure it reacted quickly.
Twenty years later, auto collision detection technology is a widely implemented safety feature. The European Commission has said that by 2015, all new commercial vehicles should be fitted with devices that could, they hope, dramatically decrease the number of fatalities on European roads.
Ford, GM, Toyota and many others are funding huge swathes of research and development in the area.
Perhaps Kitt’s most distinctive feature was the red bar of light that would ebb and flow on the front of the car.
Aside from merely looking good, it was actually carrying out an important function – the anamorphic equaliser was described by the programme-makers as a series of “electronic eyes”.
It allowed Kitt, and therefore Knight, to see in X-ray vision or infra-red.
Unfortunately, the bar was also thought to be Kitt’s weakest point, its Achilles heel, because it was not protected by the car’s bulletproof armour.
In this regard, modern day technology hasn’t quite reached the heights of Kitt – yet.
The likes of Mercedes Benz have fitted some of their higher-end vehicles with technology that allows the driver to see better in the dark (other than, obviously, turning on lights). Using infra-red, the road ahead is “lit up” in a way that is invisible to humans, but can be interpreted by a computer to give better visibility.
Other systems use thermal radiation given off by animals and humans to allow a different way to “see” in the dark.
