Drive Me Crazy

I am a bad driver. I have been hit by a truck that was backing up, slipped off the Belt Parkway and drove up a guardrail, and, to avoid being hit by a crazy driver, drove off the road on the New Jersey Turnpike and blew two tires. Then there are a million almost-moments, like when I almost hit the person in front of me when he slammed on his breaks, or when I lost control of the car in the snow and was barely able to regain it in time to stop. Maybe these all weren’t my fault, but a better driver would have been able to avoid at least one of these incidents.

I am also a reluctant driver. I don’t like driving. I don’t like how you can’t relax for one moment. I don’t like how easy it is to get angry at the other drivers. And I don’t like how driving is so dependent on the fallible human temperament. No wonder it is so unsafe to drive. Personally, I feel much safer in a plane.

Max and I had a fairly terrifying experience a few weeks ago. We were making the long trek to upstate New York to see his parents. When I say long, I mean over 3 and a half hours, easily, with no traffic. And we go every few weeks (another issue for another day). Max usually drives, as I am a bad driver (see above) and I dislike it. So we were driving along what is the longest portion of our journey (50 miles on this one highway). We were chatting; it was a Friday night and we were just catching up on our increasingly busy weeks. We’ve both been given more responsibility at work lately, and it had been an exhausting week.

As one of our headlights was out (the light just stopped working) and one of our brake lights was also out (my fault—maybe I’ll tell you that embarrassing story later) so Max was trying to go close to the speed limit. With the house looming in the near future, we did not need to get a ticket. So Max had the cruise control set. It is one of those roads that changes from a 55 speed limit to a 65 one and back again, seemingly without any reason behind it. So while Max was fairly certain it was a 55 limit, he wasn’t positive. We were in the middle lane, moving with traffic, at about 62 miles an hour.

Anyway, we see headlights approaching us, fast, in the distance. We weren’t worried, but we did keep an eye on it. It was a truck. As it approached us, it flashed its brights at us a few times, and then left them on for 30 seconds or so, indicating that we should move out of the way. Max was very comfortable staying behind the guy in front of us, and the truck had plenty of room to move, so we didn’t. Apparently, this infuriated the truck driver. He screeched into the right lane and hurtled in front of our car, almost hitting the car we had been driving behind and forcing Max to slam his brakes as to not hit the truck. Now in front of us, we could see the truck was transporting large, metal tubes, all strapped onto his flatbed by chains. While this was annoying, things like that happen all the time, and we were not too concerned.

Eventually, the truck moved over to the right lane. Max, keeping the same speed (he was on cruise control) eventually began passing the truck. Well, the truck driver must have seen us starting to pass him, for he once again threw his truck into the middle lane in front of us, again almost hitting another car and forcing us to slam the brakes. He repeated this right lane/middle lane move 4 times in the next 20 minutes. I called information to report him, but the girl was a bit of an idiot and couldn’t help me so I gave up. Nonetheless, I was starting to get really nervous, and I asked Max to get around this lunatic.

So Max (who is an excellent if fast driver) decided to do so. The truck was in front of us in the middle lane again at this point, fresh from almost hitting yet another car. Max waited until a large SUV passed us in the left lane, got over right behind him, and drove fairly close to him, betting that the truck driver would not want to kill this innocent person. He was wrong.

As soon as the truck driver saw we were about to pass him, he threw his truck into the left lane forcing both us and the poor SUV guy to drive on the cement divider to avoid being hit. As we passed him, he honked and yelled at us. Luckily, we were able to get far ahead of him and didn’t see him again.

I have the greatest sympathy for truck drivers. I’m sure they have a hard time of it on the road. I have personally witnessed idiots cut them off, forcing them to brake harder than they should, and I know they have to deal with that kind of thing every day. Still, was it really necessary for this driver to wage a kind of psychological warfare on us? Because we didn’t get out of his way? If Max wasn’t such a good driver, we would have gotten into a very serious accident. He was also endangering other people on the road. It’s terrifying to think that there are people out there with access to such a dangerous weapon who have no problem hurting other people.

Maybe he saw our Darwin fish….