LEARNING TO DRIVE
I remember drivers education like it was yesterday although in reality it was 34 years worth of yesterdays that my sweaty palms first grabbed that steering wheel. As the father of four boys spanning three decades, I have noticed that not much has changed with the young drivers course. As someone who is genetically gifted with mechanical ability, spent years on bulldozers, backhoes, excavators and in trailer-trucks as well as flying airplanes, I am almost constantly muttering to myself when driving. Nearly everyone on the road aggravates me and it is rare for more than a few minutes to pass without another egregious error by some "texting-while-driving" knucklehead sets me off into an exact audio replay of my prior rant.
There is no question that people are ill-equipped for the challenges of today's driving environment. When was the last time you saw a drivers ed car navigating the high-speed chaos of Rte. 495 or Rte. 93 at rush hour. People enter and exit the highway with the grace of a one-legged tap dancer, oblivious entirely to the concept of "merging" and timely speed adjustment. "Situational Awareness", a concept that is a cornerstone of aviation education but fits perfectly for the earthbound as well, demands that the operator(pilot) maintain a constant mental image of ones position in space and surrounding traffic and activity. Driving eighteen-wheelers demands it. Constantly in the mirrors, both sides, keeping a running mental account of vehicles behind, beside or ahead of you and keeping sure that one doesn't turn up missing.
However, these are the functional, or operational areas that are in dire need of improvement when it comes to training young drivers. Sadly, there is a new element which should be added to the curriculum...Driver Self-Defense. This has nothing to do with faster cars or multiple-lane highways or decaying bridges. This has to do with faster tempers, multiple-personality drivers and decaying social boundaries.
In New Hampshire, we have seen a spate of nasty road-rage incidents. Sure, this is nothing new, after all, road-rage has been around long enough for the term "road-rage" to become part of the American lexicon. But what is changing is the level of violence associated with these latest accounts. Well past the flipped finger or verbal exchange at a stop light, these last few exchanges are enough to give one pause.
Just a month or two ago, in Derry, an exchange between two men exploded at a stop light. One guy got out of his car and approached the other driver, who backed up and then rammed his car forward, crushing the leg of his adversary. He was airlifted to Mass General where they fully expected to have to amputate the leg. This guy is married with kids, a regular guy who got hot, and ends up fighting for his life. In the end, they saved they leg and the other driver was charged with assault. All this over a slight on the road.
Again, only a few months ago, an incident between two drivers led into a parking lot in Bedford where one driver circled the other driver maniacally, a young couple who were terrified. An onlooker called the police who came and reeled in the circling buzzard. You know, isn't it easier to pound your fist on your dashboard and just drive on? Yesterday, in Manchester, a young woman beeped her horn at the driver in front of her who was not responding to a green light. Who among us has not done this? If I had a nickel for every time I've done this I could take my family to Disney for a week. But this poor girl honked her horn at the wrong honky, because he followed her into a parking lot and shot all of her windows out with a BB gun. See what I mean? We need a new chapter in the Drivers Education Manual.
It is only a matter of time, of course, before a road rage incident leads to a war between two counties or worse. I can assure you that anyone who shot into a vehicle containing my children, better be reloaded by the time I track them down. Use this column as a bookmark that you can pull out later to refer to when, in the not-to-distant-future, something that happens on the road spills over into a multi-homicide. It's just a further sign of our cultural slide into oblivion, when a toot on a horn is enough to drive someone to firing a BB gun, or worse. And it also reinforces a point I have raised in more than one past column...there are more whackos among us than meets the eye. And by the way, the light has been green for two minutes-but take your time.