Prior to 1994, the word “highway” was a means by which we got from one place to another, generally in an automobile. The word was used metaphorically to describe a journey (“the highways and byways of life”). A highway symbolized freedom. Songwriters wrote lyrics where the “call” of highway outweighed that of any other. Parents told their children, and spouses told each other, “It’s my way or the highway”. In 1994, then Vice-President Al Gore coined the term “Information Superhighway” to refer to what we now mostly call “the Internet”, and a new meaning was attached to the word.

Never before in our known history has mankind had so much information so readily available. Most of us can remember using a set of encyclopedias to obtain research for a written school report (and trying to change the words around without copying verbatim.) Our children and grandchildren may have never even seen an encyclopedia, and they’ll have to be more creative in their writing than we were. The college they attend may scan papers they write, comparing them to hundreds of thousands database entries, looking for plagiarism in a way our teachers could not envision. The Internet and the information it makes available are deeply intertwined in their daily lives. I’ve watched in amazement the last several weeks as a certain 18-year old young lady (very dear to Terry’s and my hearts) has applied for jobs, arranged school schedules, obtained textbook listings, purchased new bedding, viewed her bank account, ordered college transcripts, arranged to have test scores sent to schools, shopped for apartments…all via the Internet, and all without the slightest hint of hesitation.

Last Thursday, we discovered that certain young lady’s car was going to need replacing, and fast. For a few days, the automotive highway and the Information Superhighway joined in a blurred frenzy. With Memorial Day weekend imminent, there were LOTS of used cars in the local newspaper. Luckily, most of those ads are available online at http://www.cars.com, a web site that saved many hours. One can search by new or used (I just can’t make myself say “preowned”), make and model, by price range, and within X miles of home. Once the listing appears, one can click the headers to sort by year, vehicle, price, mileage, seller, color or distance from home. Most entries can be clicked to see one or more photos of the car and a complete list of features. Search results are easily printable. Most of the dealers had links to their own web sites, as well, where you could do a similar search or just browse their entire inventory. The inventories shown on cars.com reflected what was actually on the lot, according to Terry, who covered miles of used car lot pavement, even with the “pre-shopping” the Internet afforded us.

Need to know the trade-in value of your vehicle? Visit http://www.kbb.com, the Kelley Blue Book site. Enter the pertinent information for your vehicle plus your zip code, and you’ll have a very reasonable idea of what you can expect a dealer to offer you. Every dealer we talked to seriously about trading provided us with a printout from this web site.

I could probably write another two pages about other helpful sites, including financing, value retention, expected mileage, and crash test sites. I’m afraid there are newsletter space limitations, however, and unless you happen to be in the market for a car, you’ve lost interest by now anyway.

Just as Interstate highways carry huge volumes of traffic at high speeds, the Information Superhighway delivers terabytes of information, organized so we can search it, read it (with the proverbial grain of salt), and be more cognizant consumers. See you down the road.