MY LIKELY DEATH?

I sat in front of the computer screen, going through six hours of a defensive driving course, followed by a final exam!

The company administering the course asked if the reason for taking the course was to dismiss a ticket or to reduce my insurance rates. No? I have been in fender-benders two or three times in my forty four years of driving, colliding with hard but bendable objects, to avoid spelling the red matter in the veins of breathable obstructions. I don’t recall standing in front of a judge. I don’t recall paying a traffic ticket.

I recall much worse!

Each time I head to get my car out of the garage, questions keep popping in my mind:

1. Do you want to kill or maim someone today?

2. What will your life be like if you get involved in an accident?

3. How do you feel if you hit a human being?

4.  Honestly, do you want to total this beautiful car?

5. Can you find a convenient transportation other than your own car? Spare it.

6. Are you aware that you need this car to keep your doctors’ appointments?

7. If a deer suddenly ran in front of your car, will you actually hit it?

8. Do you remember how narrow the bike lanes are, and how suddenly they end?

9. Do you remember all these young, cute kids walking or waiting for their school buses?

10. Can you continue living in your neighborhood if you hit someone or his dog?

11. Is it better to sharpen your driving skills before or after being involved in an accident?

 When enough became enough, I looked up the defensive driving company I had used three years earlier, and enrolled.

That is when I came face-to-face with the consequences of having:

1. Two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight or more lane streets, losing or gaining their lanes as we tag along.

2. Streets that either smoothly or abruptly twist or turn right or left, up or down hill.

3. Highways over or across narrow or wide bridges, up or down hill.

4.Red, green, yellow, black, and orange signals, solid or stripped, with all shapes in different places.

5. Train tracks and all the episodes that end with us, our cars, or us inside our cars flattened to mush under the train wheels.

6. Drivers who are eating, drinking, asleep, drugged, hyper, angry, racing, phoning, fighting, or mad at whoever is driving around them.

7. How to maneuver around bicycles, motorcycles, mini and small cars, SUV’s, buses transporting children and adults, as well as trucks either hauling or pulling cars or machinery.

I thought that the real coast of the defensive driving course was the boredom to death experience.  And this is not a reference to a yawn or two. My head actually fell backward, hitting the back of the chair several times. I caught it before falling forward toward the computer keyboard once.

Was I trying to block-out experiences and fatal accidents witnessed throughout the years?

Did I doubt my ability to drive under some of the above mentioned environments and circumstances?

Hum!