Some time in the fall season of 2008, I drastically changed the way I drive. For the past two years I had been a delivery boy, and I loved to zip and zoom around town, dancing between cars, taking turns so tight around the curb it was like I was squeezing the very last, excruciatingly minute glob of toothpaste out of the tube. My dream was to own a tiny Honda Accord with a manual transmission, so that I could feel every ounce of torque and each scrape of gravely asphalt surge through my entire body, pulsing in my chest as if my heart were a shuddering six cylinders. I feel justified in my sinful behavior behind the wheel, though, because I was driving in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, a town where the lanes are suffocating, city busses practically leave imprints in your passenger seat, red lights mean at least two more cars are on their way through, and dumbass college kids step out into the street without looking, forgetting that their “Carolina Understands Nigeria’s Trouble” t-shirts won’t actually change the natural outcome of brutal violent force. It’s everything I’ve experienced with driving in Boston, D.C. and New York, but in a far smaller and much less rationally designed grid.
After four years of contributing to the madness, I graduated from the University of North Carolina. Having no tangible plan and only odd-job work experience (the delivery boy gig being my longest held job), I decided to move further east with my girlfriend to Wilmington, North Carolina, where most roads I use are anywhere from four to six lanes wide and where there are traffic lights every fifty yards. Upon gas prices flirting with five dollars a gallon (where were you driving during the summer of ’08?) and my scant part-time paychecks hardly wetting a rapidly evaporating checking account, I made the only natural move I could make. I changed. I evolved. With a dust-choking, exhaust-coughing lunge I grasped for the first plateau in the gradual transmutation into my father: I stopped speeding. It’s not even so much that I stopped speeding, I simply started driving very slowly. I took a Camry-steeded knight’s oath to keep my engine’s rpm at or below 2,500 inside the city and to coast into red-lighted intersections. Upon taking up these new habits, I noticed an increasing amount of irate faces in my rear-view mirror – where previously mine had been the only one.
The 2,500 rpm strategy has paid off. My miles-per-gallon now average in the upper twenties, and I am forced to fill my tank far less often. The slower overall speed also means that the horrible squeaking of my brakes (the delivery boy job continues to define much of my life) has lowered in both pitch and volume. In emulating the notorious tortoise, I am now pushily passed by a terrifying brand of new digital age neo-yuppies, in their Jettas and trust-financed Benzes, and out of respect for these opulent frat-stars, I humbly resign myself to the right lane. I must admit, however, that I flash my right-turn signal grudgingly and that this conservative lane-shift hasn’t necessarily blessed me with a more Marley-ish road attitude. I initially figured that my move to becoming a Lowrider would ease my ever-present road anger, but it has only made my disgust towards other drivers more severe. People flash headlights, honk, and give exasperated “what the fuck?” looks, and I guess what enrages me the most is knowing that I am – and have always been – that obnoxious driver. Every time my four-cylinder beast cranked, I became the best operator on the road, and the shortest route with the fastest manageable speed were my only objectives, all safety and unobservant pedestrians to be ignored.
Three damaging accidents, one of which left a permanent and embarrassing scar, have imbued me with a modest degree of humility. I realize that forcing the issue of the quickest drive only shaves a handful of minutes, at most, off the total travel time. Fitting in an extra song on every drive has also added useful practice time for singing pop harmonies.
What continues to be my biggest pet peeve though, and one that reminds me why I don’t drive with a loaded gun in the glove compartment, is inability of most drivers to look hundreds of feet ahead (as is the frequent opportunity on Wilmington’s long, straight thoroughfares) and observe a red light. Most of this city’s drivers insist that accelerating towards a red light will in fact make it change, and reward them with that oh-so-important slashing of their travel time.
A looming red light is like death: it is abstract, unavoidable, and has every bit of power over you that you desperately wish it didn’t. Sometime today, you will have to stop at an intersection because of a red light. There is not a goddamn thing you can do about it. Your tires will stop rotating, your engine will idle for a matter of seconds (minutes, maybe), and you will try not to look at the driver next to you or let them see you half-singing the Billy Joel song you were absolutely bellowing just seconds before. A very small timer that you can’t see will send electric signals to one light bulb, turning it off, then to another, turning it on, and this cycle will continue a few times before your set of light bulbs will allow you to continue driving. My advice is to just get over it. When you see red lights staring you down like Satan daring you to a game of chicken, try taking the gas out of the traffic-daemon’s fun. Coast. Just simply coast. It’s really very easy. Whether you allow your foot to ease off the accelerator or you continue to stomp down, you’re still going to stop at the same exact place as everyone else. If you coast, you will find that people get right up in your bumper before blasting into the next lane and gunning past you. You will see hands raised in the air, drivers completely aghast with your lack of respect for time. You will find, more often than you may expect, that when the light bulbs ahead of you take their turns flicking off and on, you will never actually have to brake. You will coast right on through the intersection, passing the very drivers who zoomed impatiently around you only to arrive at a standstill in the lane next to yours. Turn to them as you pass. Think about the precious gas you’re saving. Think about how thin their brake pads are compared to yours. Think about how much of a rush you’re not in, and then flip them a wave with all five of your fingers. Give ‘em a smile, and see how the faces in your mirror have changed.
That modest reward of self-contentment and justification is the part I still have to get down. I continue to get entirely too angry with the other driver for not realizing, for not taking the time to understand the enlightened solution that is easing its way along in the right lane. I’m getting there, though. And for better or for worse, I know my father would be proud.
