I recently started taking driving lessons, at the age of 29. Oh, I've had my license since I was 16, like any good suburban girl – it's just that for much of the intervening time, I was a) too poor, b) a student, c) living in New York, d) recovering from a scary car crash, or e) all of the above. So I didn't drive for a good ten or twelve years, and I needed lessons when I wanted to start up again.

Learning to drive when you're 29, though, is nothing like doing it when you're 16. Not only are you free from the overconfidence and erratic tendencies of a 16-year-old, but your social scene is entirely different. When you're 16, all of your friends are taking driving lessons with you; when you're 29, all your friends are getting married and having babies.

And it is that juxtaposition that has led me to an epiphany:

Cars are like babies.

Babies only have one way to communicate: they cry. A baby crying can mean anything – it can mean "I'm hungry" or "I'm full;" "I'm hot" or "I'm cold;" "Pick me up" or "Put me down;" "Come here" or "Go away;" "I'm scared" or "I'm wet" or "I'm bored" or "I'm angry" or "My clothes are too tight" or any number of other things. And there's no way of telling which of these messages a baby's crying is meant to convey. It's just one sound, and whoever hears the cry has to go through all of the potential messages – checking diapers, offering bottles, picking up, putting down – to try to figure out which one the baby actually means. And if you guess the wrong one – offering feeding, when the baby is actually wet; or picking the baby up for a hug when he or she is actually too hot – it just results in an unhappier baby.

Cars only have one way to communicate: they honk. A car honking can mean anything – it can mean "Stop" or "Go;" "Speed up" or "Slow down;" "Your lights are on" or "Your lights are off;" "Turn your signal off" or "You should have turned your signal on!" or any number of other things. And there's no way of telling which of these messages a car horn is meant to convey; again, you have to go through all of the potential messages: Are my lights on? Am I going too fast? Am I in the proper lane? And if you choose the wrong one... well, you'll have more serious problems than just a hungry baby on your hands.

And neither signal is directed. When a baby cries, the sound goes out to everyone in range – and so does a car's honking. If the wrong person picks up the signal, bad things can happen: if the cry means "I want Mommy" and Grandma comes instead, the baby gets unhappier. If the honk means "You in front, go – the light is green!" and the person who's supposed to go doesn't hear it, everyone else gets unhappier.

When it comes to babies, these problems are eventually solved, of course, because babies learn to talk. Cars, not so much. The obvious solution, therefore, is to teach cars to talk.

I realize that it would be a little hard to play word games with your car, or let it watch Sesame Street or Baby Einstein, or talk to it, or do any of those other things that help babies pick up language. (Well, you could just talk to it, but it might not be so responsive. You might be able to stick those magnetic letters on its hood to help it learn how to spell, though.) Instead, what if we could program cars with certain polite, pre-set messages? That way, your car could actually say what it meant, instead of just honking.

So what could we teach cars to say? "Stop." "Go." "Turn on your signal." "Please slow down." "Please speed up." "I'm sorry." "Are you lost?" "No." "Yes." "Turn right." "Turn left." "Help!"

(I pause, in my consideration of the things cars could say to each other, to envision lewd-minded people putting their cars together to say "Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!")

So instead of:

Little Old Man With Hat: [meander meander] (Because the worst drivers always seem to be little old men with hats, for some reason.)
Other Car: HONK!
Little Old Man: [brake] [SCREECH!] [CRASH]
Everyone Else: HONK! HONK!

we could have:

Little Old Man [meander meander]
Other Car: Are you lost?
Little Old Man's Car: Yes!
Other Car: Pull over.

And then the two drivers pull over and the little old man gets his directions, and all is good.

Okay, maybe it wouldn't solve all of the problems we have with driving. Rude people could still reply to "Please slow down," with "No!" And it would take a bit of work to get the messages to the proper recipient – in order to make sure that everyone knew who you were talking to, you'd have to program in other sets of words, like "Red car" or "Blue SUV" or "Green truck" or "Big ugly Hummer."

So, the next time I pick up a Baby Einstein video for my two-year-old nephew, I might pick up one for my two-year-old car, too. Because you never know.