A dialogue between drivers takes place on our roads, and it’s often caustic and fraught with anger. We can wield our cars like weapons — or shields — the latent bully in too many of us grabbing the wheel. Maybe it’s all the congestion we face, the heat, or maybe it’s the expectation of negative outcomes from bad responses. Anyone driving faster than me is reckless; anyone driving slower is a fool. Driving is too interactive not to make quick judgments because my safety depends on your predictability.
Like most people, I think my responses and decisions are the correct ones though I always suspect that every car contains a story. Each fall in late October, I drive down to Keene, New Hampshire. They have a Pumpkin Festival that I use as an excuse to visit a friend, carve a jack-o-lantern and drive across New England during its prettiest time of year. There is also something great about driving alone for eight hours at a time with little traffic and less obligation.
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A few years back, I headed down in a blazing yellow Ford Mustang Boss 302. For this trek, I usually try to get something that best combines a quiet ride with great fuel economy. This Mustang was neither, a fact it took me two seconds to get over. It would cut a noisy streak across the blank freeway, the glorious autumn backdrop sparing a repetitive chain of coffee and gas stops from becoming an asphalt grind. I never hooked up a phone; conversation over that exhaust would be exhausting. Instead, I ruminated and thought how I had nobody to appreciate that Dwight Yoakam’s drummer kept exactly the same tempo as that Mustang’s wiper blades. When you drive alone you get to discover things like that.
The Ford Mustang takes a tour of B.C.
Brendan McAleer, Driving
On the return trip, the roadway was bare. Wide open spaces that swirled through New Hampshire and Vermont, encouraging a heavy right foot because who could resist? In time, I noticed two other cars experiencing what I convinced myself must be the same seductive force — a new BMW Z4 and a slightly older Porsche 911. And for two memorable hours, we choreographed an unspoken dance. Keeping each other within sight, we took turns spending 10 or 15 minutes out front, setting a pace that allowed all of us to tick up the speed within bounds of the conditions but above those rigidly posted. Sparsely populated freeways tend to see fewer police and a ticket would be justified. We shared the risk until we parted ways, a nod to competent drivers in capable cars.
I’ve remembered that afternoon because it was a rarity. In the muddled mess of construction and congestion I encounter heading north in Ontario, it’s the opposite. When you spend several hours on the same stretch of road as other cars, you get to know each other no matter how hard you pretend not to. You can speed up to cut in front of me as a lane reduction looms, but if we’ve been side by side for an hour, we will be beside each other again. I know this and I’m going to let you in; we don’t have to make eye contact to be courteous, and we don’t have to make eye contact to see each other, either.
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Clusters of cars on long trips are temporary neighbourhoods. Maybe your stick figure family tells me a lot about you; maybe it’s the bikes and kayaks you’ve tied on board. What you’re hauling — or not — separates the cottagers from the campers and the commuters from the tourists. I can tell if you’re lost; you can tell if I’m late. You might wonder why there are bags of garbage in the rear window of my SUV; it’s laundry, though after that time Dad threw out the wrong bag, you’d think I’d have learned my lesson.
I know if you’re angry, like one Honda Odyssey driver I shared a couple of hours with recently. You didn’t want anyone ahead of you, but speeding up to only slow down just tops up your anger. While the rest of us had settled into the heavy, though steady, summer traffic, you couldn’t seem to pull away nor drop back. The rest of the neighbours were getting along, but not you. You had kids in the back, and I wondered if you thought about what you’re teaching them. This is one lesson I learned from my Dad that I haven’t forgotten.
I pulled over for a coffee, Mr. Odyssey. Stressing over your stress would be like setting my next-door neighbour’s fence on fire; for better or worse, as go the drivers, so goes the neighbourhood.
