Control

            I went to high school from September 1977 to June 1980.  Few of my fellow students had their own cars but those that did, using the limited funds of the offspring of middle class parents, usually had something that was more that a few years old.  Say late 60’s through the early 70’s.  Unless it was a VW, most of those cars had big engines, with more horsepower than Tommy Lasorda’s Rascal scooter.  Combine that power with a heavy front end and a relatively light rear end and you get cars that were pretty much built to peal out.  I remember one guy who would pour bleach on his back wheel and then when he took off the squealing tire would make the cleanest white smoke you ever saw.

            One day some city workers put what looked like a mixture of oil, broken asphalt, Cracker Jack, and floor sweepings on Clinton Avenue, which is the southern border of the school.  I kid I knew pulled his car out of the parking lot and as he drove away fishtailed across the yellow line and connected with the front end of a car coming the other way.  It likely wasn’t his lead foot that caused the accident but rather his inexperience with the road conditions.  The kid had to stand in the middle of the street, explaining to the police that he wasn’t drag racing or showing off while likely half of the school populations walked by on their way home.

            The next day I read about his accident in the paper.  All I really remember is something about too much speed and a slippery road causing him to “lose control” of his car resulting in the accident.  I might be wrong on the timing but I think that within a couple of days and elderly woman drove her car over the curb and up one of those guy wires that they have on utility poles, where it stuck.  That newspaper article said that the senior citizen’s car “went out of control” hitting the wire and climbing it.

            I thought then, and I think now, that it’s interesting that when a teenager gets in an accident he “loses control” but when an elderly woman does it, her cars “goes out of control” as if the car grew a mind of its own and decided to try a little tightrope driving.

            My son Robbie is 16 and while he has shown little interest in getting his license, it’s only a matter of time.  I’m okay with it now because I think most of the people out there are lousy drivers, including me, and I’m not really ready to throw my first born to those inattentive wolves.  Yes, I’m a lousy driver but a better motorist because I know I’m a lousy driver.  That's my thinking anyway.  It’s the guy who thinks he drives like Morgan Freeman (in Driving with Miss Daisy, not in real life) when he really drives like the rest of us who is the real danger.  Plus some actuary somewhere has already bought into the teenager’s who can’t control their cars school of thought and calculated about how much my insurance will go up when he does start driving.

            I pledge never to tell Robbie about the bleach/tire thing.