Things I fear While Driving
Thursday, January 10, 2008
I don't know if I was this way before I lived in New York. I can't remember what it was like to drive when I was younger. I mean, I remember backing into a tree in a parking lot while I was practicing for my driver's license with my dad. I remember driving into the garage door in high school and as if I weren't already in enough trouble, hearing my sister say in her highest pitched voice possible, "I can't sleep in my room tonight!!!! I mean, it's over the garage!! WHAT IF THE HOUSE CAVES IN???" I remember getting my license and getting my first car and driving from Chicago to New York City. I remember getting a flat tire on 128 on my way to a voice lesson and feebly attempting to change it myself in my tight jeans and red leather jacket and ankle boots (ohhhhhh the wonderful memories of high school fashion) until the cops came and changed it for me (but only after yelling at me for being so stupid as to try to change a tire on the side of the busiest freeway in Massachusetts.) But I don't remember if I was a good driver or a nervous driver or an apathetic driver or a defensive driver or a risky driver. I can't remember if I actually liked driving (save the time when I was in high school and it spelled freedom).
But I'll tell you this - I do not like it now. There are many many reasons that I don't like driving, not the least of which is the other maniacs that seem to be on the road in Los Angeles. But mostly, what I don't like is that I actually feel paranoid when I drive. I can walk with reckless abandon, confident that I will not fall, I will not get hit, I will be fine. And the truth is, it's sort of ridiculous that I am soooo confident in my walking abilities given that I am one of the bigger klutzes on the face of the universe. But walking gives me no pause. Driving, on the other hand, seems to have me all up in arms.
I am constantly paranoid when I drive in LA. And in general, the things that I'm nervous about are RIDICULOUS.
When I am stopped and there is a pedestrian crossing - be it at a red light or a crosswalk - I am scared that my foot is going to slip off the brake and I'm going to hit them. This is not normal.
When I am taking a left hand turn and there's not a light, I am scared that I am going to miss that person coming from the left. In driving school they taught us to look left, then right, then left again. I do that...about 75 times. "Left, right, left, left, right, left, left, left...ok...I can turn now...wait left! OK!" This is not normal.
I am nervous that somehow, my car has put up some sort of invisible barrier and other cars can't see me and will back into, drive into, sideswipe, etc. my car because they don't see me. This fear is mildly more rational in that drivers in Los Angeles seem to be completely narcissistic people who only seem to be aware of themselves in their own cars. This is insane, impossible, and also...not normal.
I am paranoid that, while driving on the highway, I am going to be too close to the side barrier and scrape the entire side of my car. Not normal.
I also get scared that trucks will have no idea I am there, change lanes unknowingly and squash my car completely. I suppose this fits in with the belief that my car somehow turns invisible.
Every so often (this one is rare), when it's dark out and I'm stopped at a light, I have a fleeting fear that I'm going to get carjacked. (I know - that's so 90's.)
I get nervous that, because I have ZERO sense of spatial relations, I am going to make a turn and think that I'm turning wide enough but not and hit something. (This has actually occurred before so this fear is not entirely unfounded.)
I am nervous that I am going to physically hurt someone one day - not because I drive into them but because I actually get OUT of my car and physically harm them due to the fact that they are complete and total morons on the road. Example: Last night I was driving down an alley to get to a main street after stopping at a gas station. I turned left into the alley after looking left and right several times (but fewer than normal because it was an alley with almost zero traffic). When I pulled into the alley, there was a car stopped about 200 feet in front of me, but there was also a car coming toward me in the opposite direction. So I pulled behind the first stopped car and politely waited for the car to pass so that I could be on my merry way. However, for some UNKNOWN reason, the car coming in the opposite direction ALSO stopped and sat there...staring at me. I have no explanation for this and I have no where to go because I'm behind one car and the other car is in front of and to the side of me. And they just stare at me. I stare back for a moment and finally throw up my hands and give them this wide eyed annoyed look that clearly says, "Uuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmm where should I go moron? I was being polite and letting you go and now you've boxed me in and seem to be having some sort of Mexican standoff and I'm going to win simply based on the fact that I have nowhere to go except for backwards and I am NOT backing up to give in to your RUDE ASS!" Apparently having read my mind (or just my pissed off expression) the driver moved. However, had he not, I can not be held responsible for my actions of road rage. Driving makes me an angry person. Which in general, I am not. I actually think that this is fairly normal.
I am nervous about parking lots. People in this town are maniacs about parking spaces and seem to do all sorts of illegal maneuvers just to get to a spot. I have total anxiety while driving in parking lots. Especially when I come into contact with the crazies who wave you to go and then, if you don't step on the gas in a matter of miliseconds going from 0 to out of their way, they get annoyed, change their minds, and decide they are no longer going to let you go...and this happens just as your car has finally started to move forward, causing you to slam on the breaks and let the indian-giver go ahead of you.
I feel concerned that the man in the car next to me, ogling at the half-dressed girls walking down Robertson is going to drown in his own drool and side swipe me. Or that the agent that is on her bluetooth yelling at her assistant while checking her blackberry and reading her client's most recent script is going to slam his foot down in anger, forgetting that she's in his car and ram into me.
As you see, I am not at home in the driver's seat. I sort of view a car like a dangerous weapon that's in the hands of the wrong people. A LOT of wrong people. Perhaps including me.
Posted byMeesh-elle my Belle at 10:55 AM
