Thursday, May 21, 2026

The Little Boy Who Cried Warning Lights

Safety, technology, and the danger of ignoring the signal

By André van Heerden, Communications Director

I have been driving for many years. I fondly remember my first car: a 1988 manual Eagle Vista hatchback. I drove it until it could drive no more. Its colour faded to what looked like a diluted water-colour reddish-peach, its hatchback arm was replaced with a hockey stick, and it often cut out in wet, cold weather. However, when its warning engine light came on, it actually meant something. Either I had to get it fixed, or the car wouldn’t run.

My most recent vehicle has a back-up camera, sensors everywhere, and lots of warning lights and symbols to let me know everything about my car. It should be a vast improvement to my old Vista. However, most of the warning lights don’t actually seem to mean much of anything!

The tire pressure warning light came on because it wasn’t working properly—not because the tire pressure was low. The collision sign comes on (and stays on) not because of a collision but because maybe there could have been a collision. The engine light came on because, well, I’m not really sure. The mechanic said it maybe came on as a service reminder, but it was faulty and we couldn’t turn it off. To fix it would cost a couple hundred dollars. The result became my dashboard looking like a Christmas tree of warning lights that I ignored.

Warning lights should actually mean something. When they don’t, it causes either needless stress and worry or causes us to ignore them. I fear that with technology trying to solve and know everything, it hurts our ability to legitimately recognize dangers and react accordingly.

Famous Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius advised, “Pay attention to what's in front of you: the principle, the task, or what's being portrayed.”

Of course, at any workplace, everyone has to work safely and abide by safety training and procedures. That training, though, needs to be meaningful and relevant to be effective.

Ancient Greek poet and soldier Archilochus noted, “We do not rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training.”

Just because new technologies can provide more information, it does not necessarily make workplaces safer. More information could lull us into a false sense of security, desensitize us through information overload, or have us focus too much time and energy on false warnings.

When my wife and I went in for prenatal ultrasound checks on our babies, there wasn’t a lot of detail for our first. There was a good heartbeat, the baby came on time and as expected, and everyone was healthy and happy.

Years later, by the time we were expecting our fourth child, technology had greatly advanced and the imaging and details of the baby in the womb were remarkable. But along with that came a whole lot of speculation and concern about the size and shape of different parts of the baby’s physiology. It caused us needless stress and an unnecessary induced labour. The baby was born perfectly healthy, just smaller than her older siblings.

For real safety, nothing replaces training, real vigilance, and lived experience. A well-used proverb says, “To know the road ahead, ask those coming back.”

It’s good to have more information, but that should be tempered by actual experience and relevance.

AI and new technology can let us know a lot of things, but not all of it may be useful or relevant. We shouldn’t blindly trust what a system is telling us. It’s up to us to understand what is truly useful and important. It may mean fine-tuning warning signals and reducing unnecessary distractions.

My old Eagle Vista may have had many faults, but when it called for help, it really meant it.

The Little Boy Who Cried Warning Lights

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