I have cheated death a couple of times while behind the wheel. Once, an old Ford pickup blew through a red light as I headed left into its path. I tried to accelerate through the turn to allow clearance, but the idiot behind the wheel of the truck veered into my lane instead of staying in his own. My brand new Taurus was T-boned directly on the driver’s side pillar, but because I was moving circularly, most of the energy went into spinning the car 180 degrees and dropping it on someone’s front lawn. The force of the collision threw me over to the passenger side of the bench seat when the seatbelt failed, but my only injury was a minor cut on my index finger from a pebble of broken safety glass. Interestingly, the airbags never deployed. The insurance company refused to declare the car a total loss, so the bodywork, frame straightening and suspension rebuild ended up costing them over twelve thousand dollars for a car that cost me fourteen. That work led, indirectly, to the next hair-raiser.
There is a downhill run I love on North Country Road in Mount Sinai that bottoms out into a hard right curve in front of a local church. My usual move, when alone in the car, was to accelerate into the downhill portion, glide down the first two thirds, and then brake hard for a moment before accelerating through the curve. It’s more fun with a stick, but I made do, being a family man with a Taurus. One night, after working a little later than usual, I arrived at the crest of the hill. The conditions were cold and misty and the track a little slick, so I let up slightly on the downward push to allow some margin for skidding. Prior to this, I had experienced some recent wheel chatter on the front passenger side when braking, but it didn’t seem to affect handling. Two-thirds of the way down, I pressed on the brake and felt a snap that went clear through to the steering wheel. The brakes were responding poorly, the steering was gone completely and I was heading down into a blind curve with no way to turn into it.
There is a steel guardrail mounted directly behind the curve, well placed for my unfolding dilemma. I found I could maneuver the car slightly with the brakes, which were favoring the driver’s side, by forcing the anti-lock system to kick in. The idea was to slide the car sideways through the curve and come to rest against the guardrail to avoid any head-on impact. The unknown factor lay with any oncoming traffic heading into the curve. Fortunately, my way was clear this time and I landed perfectly flat against the rail with no perceptible body damage. I found out later that the passenger-side tie rod had broken loose, thanks to a bolt and nut assembly improperly installed during the rebuild. Now, whenever I hear about a car suddenly going out of control, I recall that night and wonder how many people have died because of something so easily prevented. The fact is, soon after the Taurus came out of the shop, the chattering returned. I brought it back in and the mechanic added some Loctite to the bolt threads … problem solved.
That Taurus, the only automatic transmission-equipped car I have ever purchased, saved my life once and almost took it back the second time. When my marriage ended, I went back to manual transmissions, my need for control reinforced by experience on multiple levels. This leads us now into the next generation of drivers.
I have been trying to teach my daughter Sofia to drive my six-speed Civic SI. She’s not a confident driver, which is good, in a way, for an eighteen-year-old. I like the idea that she respects the enormity of responsibility attached to operating a car. I feel strongly that driving a manual transmission teaches drivers to pay better attention to the road, to the car, and to conditions that might affect a safe journey. Unfortunately, it’s turning into a battle of wills that I will ultimately lose. She already failed her first road test, after driving a predominance of automatics. I was hoping to convince her that, in overcoming the stick, she could overwhelm the automatic. The logic doesn’t seem to be working. I’ll hold my tongue, and my breath, as the next road test appointment approaches. I wish she would reconsider. I would much rather she struggle through some practice runs and look a little silly than see her alone on the road, unprepared to deal with what has happened to me.
Abstract Invention by Charlie Accetta is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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