Steering clear of the obstacles that beset even the best drivers
- Michelle Wood: SWCD
- February 1, 2010
- 613
How the starlight that winks at me from a winter’s sky was generated millions of years ago and is only now making its way into my world.
Why Linda Ronstadt isn’t in the Rock Hall ... and ABBA is.
What Molly Ringwald does with her lipstick in that scene from “The Breakfast Club.”
And when the Kardashians are going to realize that their Warholian Fifteen Minutes of Fame are up.
All of these personally perplexing problems have simple explanations, but I remain utterly ignorant.
To me, they remain as confounding as Mark McGwire’s being welcomed back into baseball, despite decades of cheating the game with his steroid-inflated home run totals.
The sham (and shame) of it all.
I was thinking about that disconnect the other day when I opened the mail and saw that the state of North Carolina was wishing me a happy birthday. Well, that’s not technically true. The folks in Raleigh were reminding me that my driver’s license expires next month and that I should make plans to renew it soon.
That’s going to be a lot of fun.
Standing for hours in a line that never moves.
Taking a test to make sure I know what shape a stop sign is, as opposed to one that marks a railroad crossing.
Testing my eyesight.
And then, the coup de grace, the always-embarrassing photograph, the mug shot with no forgiveness.
I’m not a vain man, but shouldn’t the DMV offer something that used to be available at the county fair, one of those booths along the midway where you could get three shots for a buck?
You’d get a strip of pictures and be able to choose the one that made you look the least like a Skid Row denizen, one that you wouldn’t mind showing to a convenience store clerk who asked to see some ID.
But that’s not what I want to write about this week: vanity or paradoxes without solutions.
What I want to rail about is bad drivers.
I mean, driving is a privilege and a serious responsibility, so don’t talk on your cell phone. Or text. Or try to pick up something you dropped on the floor as you’re speeding toward a line of stopped traffic.
How hard is it to be smart and courteous and safe?
Again, I can’t explain the way some people think that using a turn signal is optional. Or that dimming your brights is important so as not to blind an oncoming driver. Or that tailgating is somehow cool.
When I was taking driving lessons, my instructor told me something I’ve never forgotten; that is, for every 10 miles per hour you’re traveling, keep a car length’s distance behind the vehicle in front of you.
For the math challenged, that means if you’re traveling 30 miles per hour, stay three car lengths back.
Down here in NASCAR’s cradle, they must think in terms of inches.
And it’s not just in the South.
When I lived and studied and drove around South Bend, I realized that Hoosiers were the worst drivers in the world.
And now, it’s the same here in Coastal Carolina.
I just don’t get it.
Young drivers, old ones and almost everyone in between seems to get behind the wheel with the sole purpose of putting my life in danger.
“Has this car become invisible?” I asked my wife the other night when we were taking our sunroom television set in to be repaired. “Can’t they see me? Why is everyone pulling out in front of me?”
She had her mind on another subject.
“If they can’t fix that old TV,” she asked, “do you think we should go for a 52-inch plasma flat screen, with digital high def and a way to get movies sent right to us?”
Just then, a careless tailgater with his lights on high beam nearly rear-ended us.
“I just don’t understand,” I said, “why everything has to be so difficult.”
Mike Dewey can be e-mailed at CarolinamikeD@aol.com or snail-mailed at 6211 Cardinal Drive, New Bern, NC 28560.