The other day, my car crashed.

No, I don’t mean like in an accident. I mean the way computers crash. Really.

I have a lovely voice-activated bluetooth system in my car that my iPhone pairs with, so I can listen to music while I’m driving, and make phone calls and send texts, all without moving my hands from the steering wheel. The key to it is that there’s a button on the indicator lever that activates the system when it’s pressed. And the other day, it didn’t work.

Just didn’t work. I was very confused – it seemed like a simple enough function (press button – talk to disembodied voice), but for some reason it simply wasn’t working. The radio was playing, but I couldn’t get it off the radio and back to my iPhone’s music. I couldn’t even make a phone call.

Eventually I came up with the idea that maybe I should just turn the car off – you know, turn it off and turn it back on again:

And guess what? It worked! Effectively, my car’s computer had actually crashed.

It reminded me of when my wife’s car was recalled – for a software update.