The damage to the car wasn’t that
bad, just a sizeable dent in the driver’s side door and a side view mirror that
was hanging by a wire. If you saw my car
in any of the three years between that day and whenever my parents took it to
the dump last fall you would know that we never spent the money to get the dent
fixed. While we had to get the side view
mirror fixed, that dent stayed with the car for the rest of her natural life
(see below). It went to New York to
visit friends, to Iowa to interview politicians, to Canada on more than one
occasion, and back and forth between South Bend and Northbrook more times than
I can count.
Everywhere the car went, people
asked me about the huge gash in the driver’s side door, and I always told them
the story about how my sister hit the car when she was going to an early
morning swim practice. As it turns out
however, that has shockingly been my sister’s only screw-up behind the wheel to
this day.
***
Today is my youngest brother’s
sixteenth birthday. Someday soon he will
go to the DMV to take his driver’s test, and our parents will celebrate because
their 23-year careers as drivers to sports practices, school, friend’s houses,
and movies will have finally come to an end.
While I wish that they’d celebrate by throwing Molotov cocktails at the
seven seat Lincoln Navigator that is no longer necessary (the only car they own
that can fit us all, albeit uncomfortably), it’s more likely that they
celebrate by throwing ridiculous sums of money towards a company that will
insure Mike in his new adventures on the road.
In honor of that, here are some
stories about driving.
***
Late on a Thursday night about
seventeen months ago I was driving my friend’s car down a country road in West
Virginia (nailed it) when the all too familiar sight of police flashers
appeared in my window immediately after I exited a toll booth. A couple friends and I were driving from
South Bend to Chapel Hill for the Notre Dame-UNC football game and it was
getting late on I-77 near Charleston, WV.
The West Virginia State Trooper slowly made his way towards our car shining
his flashlight towards me.
“Is there something wrong,
officer?” I asked, perplexed about why I had been pulled over exiting a toll
booth.
“License and registration,
please” the trooper asked as my roommate started to fish through the glove compartment
looking for the registration to his car.
After handing the officer my
driver’s license and watching my roommate sort through a disaster of papers in
his glove compartment, my mind started racing about why we had been pulled
over. Because it was dark, and the road
was curvy and hilly; I was pretty sure that I hadn’t been speeding. I hoped it was just confusion about the
California plates driving south through Appalachia because I couldn’t afford to
get a ticket. Not then.
Four months earlier I had been
pulled over on that stretch of I-80 right near Michigan City for cruising from
South Bend to Chicago close to 90 mph.
It would still be a couple months before that ticket was expunged from
my record and the last thing I needed was for my insurance rates to go up
(something that probably would have convinced my parents that I needed to pay
for my own car insurance).
“Is there something wrong,
officer?” I asked again, as my roommate
continued to search through the glove compartment for a registration that
actually said 2008 on it.
“Have you boys been drinking,”
the officer asked as he shined his light into the backseat towards my friend.
“No sir, we’ve been driving for
the past eight hours from South Bend, we’re on our way to North Carolina for
the Notre Dame Football game,” I said, hoping that the Notre Dame reference
might get us out of whatever trouble we were in (I’ve actually seen that work
before, in the middle of Alabama of all places).
“Well, we had somebody call in
about twenty minutes ago telling us that you sideswiped a guard rail,” he said,
as my roommate finally found the registration for the car and we passed it
along to the trooper. I might have been
a little tired at that point in the night, but I certainly hadn’t sideswiped
any guard rails; something the three of us immediately told the trooper before
he retreated to his car with our information.
As we sat there in the car
waiting, I was nervous and scared.
Getting another ticket then would have been disastrous, and I was pretty
certain that I hadn’t done anything wrong.
I was pretty sure that he couldn’t give me a ticket for something that
he didn’t see (something that I didn’t think had even happened), but I really
had no idea what to expect as he walked back towards the car.
The trooper gave me a written
warning (which I proceeded to nail to the wall behind our bar when we returned
to South Bend) and told us that we shouldn’t drive if we were too tired. We told him that we were planning to get off
at the next exit for the night (which was true) and we parted ways as my
heartbeat fell back to a normal pace and my roommate tried to organize all of
the things that had been in his glove compartment.
***
The first and only time I got in
a significant car accident was my senior year of high school. I was leaving the high school parking lot,
making a left turn onto a small (but often busy) street* adjacent to the school
and I just didn’t see the other car coming.
Because neither car was moving very quickly, it wasn’t really that eventful. Sure there was damage to both cars, but each
could also still be driven just fine.
Despite the fact that the signage
at that intersection was changed some time after I graduated to prevent this
type of accident (stops sings were added in every direction), it really doesn’t
make a good story. I just felt obligated
to include it here for full disclosure.
*It was the curvy street that Ferris Bueller speeds down as Cameron is
coming out of hiding after they pick up Sloan from the high school. I think we should rename this street Hughes
Boulevard in honor of the late director.
Does anybody know somebody I can propose this to?
***
Before I left for China I heard
about something called an International Driver’s Permit, something that I knew
I had to have (even if I’d never use it).
As soon as I arrived in China and saw the crazy
mayhem that is the streets here, however, I knew that I would not be
actually using the driver’s permit, because I had no intention to ever drive
while in Asia.
Things changed once we left
China.
On our first day across the
Chinese border, we rented motorbikes in Luang Namtha, Laos. I had never driven a motorbike before, and
one of the first things I did on my bike was crash into a small sign outside
our guesthouse. After figuring out how
to stop and accelerate the bike (although not really knowing when it was
appropriate to change gears), we were on our way motoring around the beautiful Lao
countryside.
In this area of Laos, the only
trouble we encountered with the motorbikes was the motorbikes themselves. Once I figured out how the bike worked, there
wasn’t really anything else to worry about.
There was hardly any traffic and there were certainly no major
intersections in this area of the countryside (in fact, I’m fairly certain I
only saw one traffic light the entire two weeks we were in the country). In northern Laos, the degree of difficulty
with the motorbikes was relatively low.
Things changed when we arrived in
Indonesia.
After a week of diving on the
small island of Gili Trawangan and one day in the supposedly “relaxed” city of
Ubud, Gavin and I found ourselves back at Kuta Beach (9 days after my birthday)
and looking to spend one night further south on the Bukit Peninsula of Bali. To do this, we left our bags at our hotel and
walked down the alley where it didn’t take long for somebody to say, “Yes, transport,
yes, motorbike.” This time, we
actually wanted to rent motorbikes.
With our motorbikes all gassed up
from the guy selling fuel in old vodka bottles further down the alley, we began
to ride towards the main road when I thought to myself: “there is going to be a
lot of traffic on the main road,” and then “oh shit, they drive on the left
side of the road here.” Whatever
happened, this was certainly going to be a lot different than driving down the
country roads of rural Laos.
The main road that the alley
dumped into was luckily a one way street, so the first right turn I made was
somewhat normal, except for the fact that I was on a motorbike and I was
turning into a pack of motorbikes that I would have to somehow keep up
with. I tried to stay in this pack for a
while and do what everybody else was doing, but it wouldn’t last long.
Over the years when I have been
driving around the United States, I often encountered traffic on highways or
regular streets. Sometimes motorcycles
will take this opportunity to drive straight through the traffic between the
lanes. Whenever I was driving my car in
America I wished I could do that to avoid the traffic, but when I was on a
motorbike driving across Bali I desperately wished that it wasn’t expected of
me.
When traffic was slow on the
streets of Bali, the motorbikes all drove down the center lane or the shoulder
to get around cars, which was one thing; but when cars were moving faster, the
motorbikes would move in the lane of opposite traffic to get around cars. Gavin had gotten farther ahead as I trailed a
car and looked for an opening where I thought I could get through. I moved towards the right side of the lane
and the center of the street and followed some motorbikes into the oncoming
traffic and around the car.
Soon enough we were turning onto
a larger highway that was about the size of a state route such as Route 31 near
Kokomo, Indiana. Each direction had a
couple lanes to it, and there was a happy median in the middle of the road
which meant that (at least for the moment), I wouldn’t have to cross into
oncoming traffic.
The problem, however, became the
speed. Since it was only my second time
EVER driving a motorbike, I was still not entirely comfortable cruising at 65
with the wind in my face. I tried to
keep speed with some people around me, but every time they would pass a car I
would become apprehensive and hang back.
It wasn’t that I was going incredibly slowly, I just wasn’t going quite
as fast as the majority of the motorbikes on this street. When I finally got around one car and sped up
enough to catch up with Gavin, I saw a man riding next to him in uniform and
followed them off the road at the first turn.
We had been pulled over.
The officer asked for our
International Driver’s Permits, which we didn’t have, and then he told us what
a serious offense it was to drive motorbikes in Indonesia without an
International Driver’s Permit. He told
us that we would have to go to court and that there would be a trial. He said that I had been driving too slowly
and that it wasn’t safe, but I knew the real reason why we had been pulled
over.
For the same reason why we were
pulled over in West Virginia driving a car with California plates, and why I
was pulled over five months earlier driving up US-31 from Dayton to South Bend
in a car with Illinois plates; we were pulled over by that officer in Indonesia
because we were white. He knew that we
wouldn’t be going to any court date and we wouldn’t be having any trial, and he
told us that the fine was 600,000 Rupiah ($65).
After telling him that we only
had 300,000 Rupiah** with us (something I instantly regretted), he agreed that
would be enough to pay the bribe fine and we were on our way. As I strapped my helmet back on and prepared
myself to get back on the road, there was a fleeting moment where I worried
that the ticket he wrote would somehow make its way back to the courthouse near
Kokomo, Indiana where I still had about a month left until my driving record
looked clean again.
Then I remembered that I was in
Indonesia, and there was no way their system was organized enough to send a
traffic ticket all the way to the states.
So I rode my motorbike back onto the highway, and we made our way to
Uluwatu.
**I later found out that we probably could have gotten out of this
situation for roughly 50,000 Rupiah ($6), so next time I have an encounter with
a police officer in a developing country, I’ll probably pretend like I have a
lot less money.
***
Last winter I left our apartment
in South Bend in a brutal snowstorm. I
don’t know why I left (although if I had to guess, I was probably picking up
some McNultys),
but there was a lot of snow that night.
Being from Northbrook, I had plenty of experience driving in the snow,
and I had grown accustomed to it. I
didn’t really think twice about going out that night.
I was driving down a dark street
near my apartment when I saw a car in front of me slow down and stop. The street had not yet been touched by a plow
and we were driving through an inch of fresh powder. I started to pump the brakes. Pump . . . pump . . . pump. Nothing happened, and the car was still
coasting.
As I continued to pump the brakes
to no avail, I thought to the second accident I had ever been involved with. Only a few weeks after my first accident I
was following a friend out of school during open lunch and it was snowing. I followed him into the left turn lane and
watched him stop in front of me. Pump .
. . pump . . . pump. The car was
slowing, but not fast enough, as I tapped the back of my friend’s car. Luckily his car had no damage, and the
aesthetic damage on my car was there till the bitter end (see below).
In South Bend on that snowy
winter night, I knew that I couldn’t hit the back of the car in front of
me. I kept hitting the brakes, but the
car was still slowly coasting towards its inevitable union with the bumper in
front of me. I couldn’t let that happen,
not this time, not again. Seemingly out
of options I quickly spun the steering wheel all the way to the right and
rolled the car into the snowy curb next to me.
The car in front of me continued
on its way like nothing had happened as I turned out of the snow bank and
straightened my car out on the road. My
hands were shaking, but my car had survived once again.
***
The thing about driving is that
more often than not it comes down to factors you can’t control. Maybe the weather is terrible, but you have
to drive across a snow-covered highway.
Maybe a construction barrel comes rolling out in front of you while you
are going 75 mph with three trucks surrounding you (only by the grace of God
did that barrel roll just to the side of my car). Maybe you get pulled over because your
license plates are from the wrong state, or because some Good Samaritan in West
Virginia thought they spotted a drunk driver.
Driving isn’t always easy, Mike, and
the truth of the matter is that you are probably going to get into an accident
or get pulled over at some point over the next couple years. You’ll probably have to pay a traffic ticket
or two for going too fast, and you’ll probably see those flashing lights in
your rearview mirror more often than you want to. The objectives should be to not get pulled
over while you are still on supervision for the last ticket, and not to get in
an accident so bad that your car can’t drive away from it.
The key, I suppose, is to control
those things you can control without becoming too slow and irritating. So here are some rules to help you out:
Rules to remember:
1)
Don’t drink and drive. Seriously, this is stupid.
2)
Don’t go faster than 90 mph, especially in Ohio
(although, if you’re stuck with that Hyundai, it probably won’t be possible
anyways).
3)
If you’re driving as the lead car in a caravan
and you see a light turn yellow, don’t speed through it, as it’s just impolite
to those following you.
4)
If you’re driving in an inch or two of unplowed
snow, stay the hell away from the guy in front of you.
5)
If you’re going to do doughnuts in the GBN
parking lot at 5:30 AM before swim practice on the first day it snows, make
sure Coach Runkel doesn’t see you.
6)
If Julie, Tim, or I call you to pick us up
somewhere because we have drank too many McNultys, it’s your younger sibling
obligation to do it. If you say this is
unfair, then you haven’t thought it through because five years from now you
will be 21 years old and looking to sleep on Julie’s couch in Miami for spring
break, or Tim’s in Chicago for a night, or mine in New York for a weekend; and
it will be our older sibling obligation to let you do this regardless of
whatever kind of more important stuff we have going on.
For a 16-year old, driving gives
you the freedom to go to Wendy’s and Sarkis whenever you feel like it and to
see movies without getting a ride from Mom and Dad. As the years go on, however, this freedom will
be expanded to show you places and things that are a lot more awesome than the
few suburban areas you’ll drive in the next couple years, but for now enjoy
what you can.
Happy Birthday Mike!!
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