I Was Just Driving Down The Road

"I'm so bad"

2009-07-22T12:04:00.003-05:00

I rode, just once, with another smart, savvy, responsible mother of two teens. As we drove down the two-lane road, she straddled the centerline, clearly taking a lane and a half to herself.

"Do you know you're straddling the center line?" I asked.

"Yeah, I know, my daughter bugs me all the time," she answered casually. "I'm so bad."

"I never think of it"

2009-07-16T09:29:00.004-05:00

While on my way through midtown St. Louis, I found myself behind a van that glided freely from lane to lane and around turns without using a turn signal.

The van ended up at the same destination I did, and the woman who got out of the van was a friend of mine.

"Don't your turn signals work?" I asked.

"Sure, why?"

"I was behind you and I didn't see you using them."

"Oh, " she said, with a cheery laugh and sunny smile. "I never think of it."

Teenagers, Texting, and Subtexts

2009-06-28T08:10:00.012-05:00

Teenagers, whether as drivers, students, or social beings, generally don't discuss their most important consideration--fitting in--with parents. They don't even discuss it among themselves. The correct attitude is being too cool to care.

How to fit in is absorbed from media of every kind. The underlying message is: cool teens drive, cell, text, go without seatbelts, do whatever--and if adults think it's dangerous and disapprove, that's all the more reason to do it. One PSA versus a hundred TV characters shown celling while driving--you tell me which message sticks.

I recently watched the pilot episode of Beverly Hills 90210. No seatbelts were used. You can't flounce prettily at the wheel, or be a leather-clad rebel, and wear a seatbelt. Cameron Diaz's appeal in My Best Friend's Wedding is expressed in her happy-go-lucky reckless driving. Her passengers are terrorized--yet charmed! (Audrey Hepburn did the same, but on a small motor scooter.) Dying young in a fast car is the essence of the James Dean legend, and forms more than one teen pop song. Jan and Dean never sang about driving safely. Wildly popular video game--Grand Theft Auto. What are Gone in 60 Seconds and Tokyo Drift about? Signaling your turns?

A teen's driving behavior is only partly about getting from Point A to Point B. The rest is invidious social display. Having a cell phone and using it frequently is a status symbol. Doing it while driving means you can multitask, have an important social agenda, and your own car to drive, too! Talking and texting on the cell while driving, even erratically, is one way to demonstrate wealth and social position. "Don't care if I do crash, daddy's a big shot and has good insurance!" (qv. Fried Green Tomatoes). A little crash--or three or four--by a sweet-faced teenage girl is whimsical and cute on Allstate TV commercials.

Adults reinforce this subtext, all unaware. Some adult men still speak boastfully of car crashes they got themselves into and survived. Some dads (I've heard them) even prompt aggressive driving: "Don't let this guy get ahead of you." "You have to just go at the light." "If you hesitate, they'll take over."

Resistance to overt adult counsel and establishing one's death-defying nervelessness seem as important--maybe more important--to teenagers than surviving to adulthood. The media subtext makes it something of a rite of passage to drive into danger and survive, as if the only event that can make you an adult is to be involved in an MVA and thereby learn a Big Lesson about Life And Death.

Now that there are new distractions (cellphones, iPods, laptops, DVD players, Garmin, etc.), perhaps the modern-day story of rebellion and daring is by the kid who says, "Rolled my mom's Camry talking to my girlfriend the whole time! She called 911!" Where an adult would say Reckless! contemporaries say Awesome. Teenagers have always behaved thoughtlessly and recklessly in pursuit of status--only now their status games employ heavy machines going at highway speed and involve juggling multiple distractions meanwhile. Because I can, one teen said of his texting.

I think it's up to adult drivers to pay attention to what's communicated to teen drivers by the media, by their own driving behavior, and by the way they discuss driving and relate their own driving history. Right now it seems to be one part Do what I say, not what I do and one part I once drove recklessly, and so may you.

Perhaps it's not a good idea to tell your kid--or any kid--about the crashes you got into at his age unless you frame it as a severe cautionary tale. It's probably not a good idea to chuckle over it, or make it some kind of daring war story (Totaled the car, walked away, not a scratch!). Just a thought. As to the media, we're all responsible for that, and it's a huge ocean liner to try and turn around. I wish for far stricter license standards--including no license without a diploma or GED--and more severe penalties for youthful careless driving.

Toad In Love

2009-06-26T11:07:00.003-05:00

"Glorious, stirring sight!" murmured Toad, never offering to move. "The poetry of motion! The real way to travel! The only way to travel! Here today--in next week tomorrow! Villages skipped, towns and cities jumped--always somebody else's horizon! O bliss! O poop-poop! O my! O my!"

"O stop being an ass, Toad!" cried the Mole despairingly.

"And to think I never knew!" went on the Toad in a dreamy monotone. "All those wasted years that lie behind me, I never knew, never even dreamt! But now--but now that I know, now that I fully realise! O what a flowery track lies spread before me, henceforth! What dust-clouds shall spring up behind me as I speed on my reckless way! What carts I shall fling carelessly into the ditch in the wake of my magnificent onset! Horrid little carts--common carts--canary-coloured carts!"

The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame (1908)

Booth Tarkington on automobiles

2009-06-25T07:33:00.008-05:00

"With all their speed forward [automobiles] may be a step backward in civilization--that is, in spiritual civilization.

It may be that they will not add to the beauty of the world, nor to the life of men's souls. I am not sure. But automobiles have come, and they bring a greater change in our life than most of us suspect. They are here, and almost all outward things are going to be different because of what they bring. They are going to alter war, and they are going to alter peace.

I think men's minds are going to be changed in subtle ways because of automobiles; just how, though, I could hardly guess. But you can't have the immense outward changes that they will cause without some inward ones, and it may be that . . . the spiritual alteration will be bad for us.

Perhaps, ten or twenty years from now, if we can see the inward change in men by that time, I shouldn't be able to defend the gasoline engine, but would have to agree . . . that automobiles 'had no business to be invented.'"

The Magnificent Ambersons (1918)

Dogged Is My Co-Pilot

2009-06-18T14:57:00.005-05:00

I know a better way.
Go this way.
Watch this guy.
Here's your turn.
Let this guy in.
Don't let this guy in.
He's letting you go.
He's not letting you go.
Turn here, turn here.
Turn now.
Watch out for this guy.
You're okay.
This is your turn.
This is the exit, get off here.
Are you watching that guy?
Turn left.
Turn right.
Stop sign.
Stop light.
It's green, go.
It's yellow, go for it.
Goose it, you can make it.
Why are you going so slow?
How fast are you going?
Go, go, go!
Stop, stop, stop!
(gasp)
(press imaginary brake pedal to the floor)
(frustrated sigh)

Not That I Ever Worry About It

2007-08-02T11:27:00.000-05:00

Four confirmed dead, up to 30 missing in US bridge collapse (Yahoo/AFP)

Divers combed the dark, debris-strewn waters of the Mississipi river Thursday searching for up to 30 people missing after a major bridge collapsed at rush hour, killing at least four people.

Officials expected the death toll to rise, with dozens of cars and trucks dumped in the river after massive sections of the eight-lane bridge roadway were sheared off Wednesday evening in this midwestern US city.

After four hours of frantic rescue efforts before nightfall Wednesday, the head of the fire department Jim Clack said more than 60 people were taken to hospital and it was unlikely that any more survivors would be found.

The Trees Stand Alone

2007-07-28T21:08:00.000-05:00

Crossing Natural Bridge Road on McKelvey Road--which becomes Bonfils at that point--passing the nearly defunct Carrollton Shopping Center, and the King Pin Lanes bowling alley which was probably quite popular back in the day, you are in what was once a subdivision and is now gradually being cleared for the Lambert Airport expansion.

A handful of sixties-era ranch homes remain, boarded up, gutters drooping. All are scheduled for demolition, but it appears there's no hurry at present. The streets are cracked and weedy, and most street signs are gone.

A few houses are still occupied, most on the far side of I-270. A sign marks Brumley and Bondurant and two houses float in the vasty green, cars parked in front. Sometimes it's hard to tell if a house is vacant. I feel sad for the people who may have treasured their homes there and never expected to leave.

The trees stand tall; hemlocks and holly mark walks and property boundaries that no longer exist. A fair number of rosebushes bloom, unperturbed. Acres and acres of deep emerald vista, a green screen.

When I'm in the area I like to slowly wheel through streets overhung with unpruned branches that slap at the windshield. A windchime tings somewhere. I wish the trees could remain.

When I Am Worse

2007-07-15T21:54:00.000-05:00

When I have a passenger in the car I am almost always a worse driver, especially in street traffic. I'm fine on the interstate, for long trips and all.

But somehow the presence of another person--who is of course a driver and a sort of tacit copilot--causes a certain nervous boldness, a tendency to take corners a bit harder, stop a little shorter. I certainly don't want them to think I drive too slowly, that I can't get them there on time.

Sometimes I ask not to talk when I'm driving. Occasionally I'll explain that I'm a slow driver. Sometimes that makes my passengers fidgety. Maybe it's not my speed.

Cluster Bombs

2007-07-13T10:05:00.000-05:00

What I call a cluster bomb is a phalanx of cars, most often on the interstate, that form a close pack some four or five cars wide and three or four deep.

There is no standard name for this phenomenon: cars grouping a length or less apart when the traffic would permit more distance. It's like a school of fish, a flock of birds, a swarm of bees. It hangs together.

I avoid cluster bombs, let the whole roaring mass flow around me. But perhaps some drivers enjoy the proximity of other cars, the hivelike sound of cars to the left, cars to the right, cars ahead and behind. Maybe it feels like you're part of a team. The sound of speed nearby is stimulating, like the sound of a locomotive or jet engine, and your right foot gets heavy in response. Let's go, go, all of us go.

To increase speed is to say Yes.

You have to drive at cluster speed, so perhaps it confers group security against being pulled over. It allows a sort of group bullying, too--sometimes it's hard to avoid being flanked by cars and swept along.

Interstate 270 south of US 40 takes a long steep downhill slide to the valley of I-44. Interstate 44 itself has a particularly pitched pass near Six Flags (enough said), and Interstate 55 south is like a roller coaster between the Gravois and Gasconade exits.

A cluster bomb going downhill is a metal landslide, five lanes and many tons of momentum. The stuff that pileups are made of.

Driving less than a car's length from other cars seems patently lethal to me, which is why I keep my distance. Is it possible some drivers feel safer?

NASCAR, All Is Forgiven

2007-07-03T15:35:00.000-05:00

It wasn't until I sat down with a friend of mine and actually watched a NASCAR race that I understood accelerating through the curve.

I'd heard vague rumors of this move in my thirty-plus years of driving: "Slow down on the approach, accelerate as you exit."

The trick is in assessing when you are actually exiting the curve. Watching NASCAR made it graphic and understandable.

I enter a curve from as wide an angle as possible--if the near-left lane is empty I'll swing over the dotted line--and hug the outside until I spot a point to move across and follow the inside stripe, until the curve flattens out under me and I'm floating to the outside again.

"The point" is where I can draw a straight line to the end, cutting across the top of the curve instead of following it. Or something like that. I don't know exactly what the rule is, but, like the judge said, I know it when I see it.

Every curve is different. Interstate 270 south gives a wide and tipped-up curve onto I-44 east. No brakes needed if you can swing in wide under 50 mph and float left. It's good to vroom out past the Watson Road exit onto 44 while the brake-touchy are still getting going.

Another good one is northbound I-270 onto westbound US 40, a downsloping gentle curl; like a good girdle, one feels held by the banked curve, cupped in safety while rolling under the legs of the overpasses.

Then there's the curve that takes off US 40 west onto North Outer 40 and then under the highway to South Outer 40--essentially a 180-degree turn in a hairpin-plus-J curve. A sharp curve to the right down an exit ramp that immediately swings a tight left and doesn't let up until you're near the Yield sign, lurking under the skirt of US 40, watching for the cars shooting past on the protected green at 141 South.

If I make onto South Outer 40 without using the brakes more than twice (once is ideal) . . . then I win.

The Beautiful Ballas Bypass

2007-06-28T08:28:00.000-05:00

The stretch of Interstate 270 around the west side of St. Louis frequently slows just before Manchester Road, and you don't get back up to speed until after the Dougherty Ferry bridge construction is well behind you.

I hate being in constipated traffic, nudging along at 15 mph and hypervigilant front and back.

So I've cut off to Ballas Road south of Interstate 64, a blissfully quiet two-lane that parallels 270 on the east through Sugar Creek Valley (Please Help Preserve Its Beauty) past the tricky stoplight on on a hilltop curve at Dougherty Ferry, climbing hills and coasting valleys on smooth shaded asphalt striped clean as a snake.

Ballas Road presents you with a left fork to Adams Street and downtown Kirkwood, or a tail end of Ballas that reaches Big Bend in Webster, where you can rejoin the Highway 44 at Berry Road, or lose yourself in the shady streets of Shrewsbury. During the worst times of bridge construction it was faster to take Ballas and much less hectic.

I saw a white F-150 with a cross-and-lilies and "In Loving Memory of My Wife and Mother" on the cab's rear window. The driver was a somewhat senior white man.

Was the truck purchased with proceeds from his wife and mother's demise? Does he drive to honor them? I have not seen anything like it before.

One Crosstown Drive

2007-06-24T21:27:00.000-05:00

Tonight I took Delmar east from the Loop, turned right onto Skinker, left on Forest Park Parkway, and then right on De Baliviere, winging around past the History Museum, following a train of cars who seemed to know quite well where they were going. Right again, then around the lovely fresh fountains below Art Hill, perfectly white; navigating the tiny arrowed lanes to turn left up the west side of the hill, to the Art Museum, behind the statue of Louis pointing his sword, around the Zoo's grid of bird cage and into the new roundabout and finally onto Hampton.

I cut through The Hill instead of charging down Hampton's stoplight-strewn curves. Sublette will take you past Cunetto's House of Pasta, a park where baseball is continously played, past the old State Hospital and the Crematorium; down to the boulevard of Utah, right on Brannon, left on Neosho, right on south Kingshighway and finally Gravois to Loughborough. Probably a twelve-mile trip.

I drove this random alternate route without thinking too much about anything other than staying off the interstate and avoiding the four-lane secondary roads. A good time for 30 mph driving, with the window open and the grassy smells of summer flowing in, and the houses hushed and lowlit.

That Certain Feeling: Fear

2007-06-22T08:16:00.001-05:00

You're cruising at standard speed, safe from the car ahead of you and nothing but converging lines behind you in the mirror.

You glance up again and in your rearview are eyes and teeth. The eagle glare of the new Dodge Charger headlamps is distinctly predatory. Or maybe it's the gleaming grille of a Denali flexing itself against your personal automotive space. It's a Spielbergian moment: turning to see the T. rex in your face.

Whoa. Stress hormones flood the bloodstream, eyes widen, your heartbeat jumps. Can you easily move left or right and get out of its way? Is it weaving and charging, looking for a way to slice around your left or right bumper? Which will it be? Grip and hold steady until it backs off or roars into another lane.

Calm down and go on. You still gotta drive.

My Left Lane

2007-06-20T06:34:00.000-05:00

The far left lane on the interstate is not for such as me, slowpoke at 65 mph. The fast lane is for the frank speeders, the fwaumm flyby of Harleys or the tornado roar of a semi.

It is also, of course, where speeders go and are spotted by the law. To slot yourself into the far-left passing lane and stay there invites the radar gun.

Like most urban interstates, our local five-lane (ours are the Inner and Outer Loops) has exits every two miles or so and connects with four other major interstates in its clock-face circle. Three lanes become two, become Exit Only; your on-ramp is now an off-ramp. Riding the right lane as a demure Slow Driver means constantly adjusting to accommodate people zeroing and zooming in on the exits. Exits are where mistakes are made, where accidents happen. Signage over a hill or curve can confuse on first glance by tricks of perspective and angle. I prefer to stay out of crowds trying to figure out, at highway speed, Where am I s'posed to be?

This leaves the far-left lane unoccupied, a clean tube, for miles at a time, even in heavy traffic. So I shift over, keep an eye on the rearview for fast-approaching Speederados, and move out of the way when I need to. Sometimes I can stay in the left lane, doing 65/60 (my speed/speed limit), for many miles without blocking any other driver. Just move out of the way and let the SUV doing its comfortable 80 mph go by.

I like the left lane. It's a notch quieter. I'm away from the lane-shifting taillight-flashing exit dance. Speeders pass me one right lane over. Grassy medians are more attractive, although the close dance with metal barriers can be unnerving if you ever think about it.

I'll get out of your way too.

Of course I can drive

2007-06-18T18:08:00.000-05:00

Like Raymond, I consider myself "an excellent driver." I have a 5-speed compact car with cruise control. I use my seat belt reflexively. I curb my speed; I don't like to drive fast. I'm conscientious about turn signals and mirrors. I'm cheap about gas, trying to find a way to coast in neutral and keep the rpms as low as possible. I don't tailgate, slam the gas on green lights, or lane hop.

I eat, drink, look at maps while I drive. In the past, I have smoked and even read behind the wheel on long stretches of interstate. I read Kitty Kelley's biography of Frank Sinatra while sunny Kansas rolled beneath my wheels. I have been GGG behind the wheel, but only as passenger. I have misbehaved behind the wheel.

I have blown bubbles. I have cried and screamed and pounded the wheel. I have sung loud with the radio, or without. I have talked back to the radio. I have felt my foot pressing the gas harder as a particularly thrilling passage plays on the CD.

I have driven under the influence. More than once. Extremely grateful to have arrived home safely each time.

I am neither a bad driver nor a perfect one. Always room for improvement.

Driving is a state of mind

2007-06-18T10:38:00.000-05:00

I have been slightly amazed by something many millions of us do without thinking: pilot a 2-ton+ machine of metal and rubber down asphalt highways at extremely high speed. Actions and behaviors and conditions behind the wheel describe aspects of our lives: behind the wheel, pedal to the metal, out of gas, dead-end street.

I love to drive. I hate automobile exhaust and traffic jams and car repairs and car trouble. I hate the way roads and suburban development are cutting up meadows and farmland. I hate the price of gas, the smell of gas, the oil spots on the ground, oil spills killing wildlife. I hate the way the oil in Iraq is a prize to kill people over. I hate everything that is hateable about oil, and cars, and the car culture of America. Truly, I wish 9/10ths of the personally owned automobiles, ATVs, mobile homes, and other such beasts would be gone.

But I love to drive. I love to grip the wheel and engage my hands and feet and brace my body against the seat. I like the way roads slip up and under the wheels, and the way sounds surround and roar by. I love how scenery and CD can make the trip a narrative. I am darkly bemused that my car takes me past accidents, dead things, and bad scenes at speeds that allow little more than a quick sideglance impression of the events on the ground. I have no choice--I'm already 1,000 feet down the road.

I'm trying in this blog to capture that state of mind that exists only behind the wheel. There is nothing like it on earth, there is no activity a human being can do that is as much like flying free, that is a meditation, an escape. And in the era of Peak Oil and global warming, driving may become something only a few thousands, instead of millions, do. What will we lose, then?