Driven fearful

Pops always was mindful to teach his children to respect and fear the automobile.  He spoke of the potentially fatal dangers of over-correcting, but his eyes told the tale of an inexperienced driver and in that story I could see a life slipping away.

Driving down the road he would throw his hands in the air, turn to me, and say you have got to take the wheel.  I used to wonder what he was thinking, is this a game?  It would make me mad and I did not want to do it.  However, those eyes suggested I had better take that wheel.  For better or worse, that is how I began learning how to drive.  It started with control, I can still hear him coaxing me to turn the wheel sharper:  "don't be afraid to turn the wheel".  He was right, anger was quickly replaced by fear, however, as experience mounted the fear slowly subsided.  I learned an incredible confidence behind the wheel.  With the exception of a high school driver's ed teacher (and his poor teaching methods) temporarily reverting my behavior, fear has been replaced by respect and remarkable control.

I started driving before I was legally allowed to do so.  At first, every morning I drove with my mother in the passenger seat.  She "dropped" me off and drove home; then I would ride to school with friends.  Eventually, I started driving to the store or short distances alone.  Mother let me drive if I asked, but I heard later in life that she was still a bit suspicious about my maturity and how this impacted my driving behaviors.

Particularly one incident comes to mind.  I drove to the store, which was probably less than a mile away (I probably should have just walked, but I have always liked driving more than walking).  Where we lived at the time, the road to the house made a right off the main road and then a quick left so that it was parallel to the main road for a hundred feet or so before intersecting a road from the right.  On my way home I made the right turn and before I started turning left my knee bumped the gear shift into a neutral position.  I quickly shifted back into drive, but the van just did not respond.  Apparently, I ruined the transmission when this simple mistake occurred; which is highly improbable!  Nevertheless, I sat there a minute not knowing what to do; at the time I did not have a cell phone.  I crossed my fingers and tried to get it in gear the best I could (this was an automatic transmission, if it is in drive then it should be in gear) the van would still not respond, but reverse was working...So I drove the rest of the way home in reverse.  Which I consider no small feat and I doubt many people could have matched it even with several years of experience.  Apparently my mother, I found out later, thought I was manually changing gears (on an automatic) because I thought it was 'cool' perhaps I learned it from the movies (idk).  However, I still maintain my innocence.  Some may call it unbelievable, I still do not quite believe it, but the truth is that I came around the corner and my knee bumped the gear shift into neutral, not even into reverse just neutral.  That was enough, this time, to tear up a transmission.

If some one wants to criticize that perhaps I was taking the corner too fast, then that is acceptable I probably was.  I do not recall how fast I was going, but judging from how I have learned to take corners it is probably accurate to say I have always taken them a little fast.

Nevertheless, I have done some pretty amazing things (most of them while driving a delivery/moving truck), that even I question how it was possible.  One time I defied the laws of physics and overcame inertia while driving.  A woman suddenly stopped at a yellow light (where I am from we do not stop on yellow, typically).  Not only did I not anticipate her reaction, I probably even sped up some so that the light would not change red before I passed under it.  Needless to say, I slammed on the brakes and jerked the wheel to the left where the vehicle jumped into the median instead of fusing her trunk with her engine.  It was a game of inches and I am still not quite sure how I completely avoided her vehicle.  Another time, I "parallel parked" a delivery truck between a semi-tractor and a concrete dock wall, with somewhere around 2-3 inches of leeway.  The bumper was nearly perfectly aligned with the dock wall.  Then there was the time I began traveling around a turn on a country road only to find two school buses coming at me.  I jerked the wheel quickly to the right and then ever so slightly back to the left to, avoiding the first bus as my passenger side tires hovered over the shoulder of the road.  The second bus practically stopped (probably in disbelief and fear) but I gently returned all four tires to the road and smoothly slipped away.  And there are other, less spectacular stories, for another time...

This post has been a long time coming; my motivation behind writing this was that a couple months ago (right as the Fall 2011 semester ended).  I was traveling from Wilmington, North Carolina back to Bowling Green, Kentucky when the car I was driving suffered a blow-out.  This is one of those things my father through his teachings prepared me for; too often I hear about the loss of control experienced after a blow-out and how that can be fatal at high speeds.

This was not my first blow-out when traveling at 65+ m.p.h. and I have been relieved (possibly even lucky) that I have not experienced any loss of control.  Maybe it is just that, all luck, but there is the chance that it has to do with preparation.  Just in case that has some truth:  thanks Pops for preparing me well.