A NEW DISTRACTION IS MAKING DRIVING MORE DANGEROUS
Drivers have a lot on their minds in these troubled times, Lorraine Sommerfeld says.
We officially went on lockdown in our house on March 13. There are four of us — all adults — who like each other.
We’re lucky. Having younger kids right now must be, to put it mildly, a challenge. I joked the other day that as a writer, I’ve been in self-isolation since 2004, and I wasn’t totally kidding.
I’m not a runner or a jogger, but I do have a sporty car in the driveway that I just bought, gas is cheaper than it has been in over a decade, and it’s still falling. And I’m not supposed to go outside.
In an age before video games, we went for family drives. Dad would yell “Get in the car, kids!” on a random Sunday, and we’d pile in the station wagon, he’d roll down his window, crank up CFRB, mash a piece of Wrigley’s in his mouth, and off we’d go. The freedom and weightlessness of those drives stuck with me.
I live about five minutes from empty, twisty, curvy roads. Side road after side road of tiny towns and big farms. Choosing gears, gauging corners and changing elevations, all of it connecting me to something other than worry and despair.
I wanted to suggest people stuff their kids in the car and go for a drive to get them out of the house, to unwind and change up their world a little. I immediately knew I couldn’t, because we’re at a time when we can’t risk car crashes. Our hospitals are about to be overwhelmed.
A few days ago, I sat at a red light beside a Costco, a tight knot of an eight-lane roadway crossed by a six-lane one. As the advanced green arrow flashed in both directions, the car to my right simply drove across the red and through the huge intersection. As the car behind him reflexively started to follow, I punched my horn and he squealed to a stop.
We’re taught, way back in driver’s ed, to pause before we enter an intersection — in case someone enters on a stale red. Most people are staring at the light, but that day, whoever was sitting in the opposing turn lane paused. I don’t know who they were, but I can’t overstate my gratitude.
If they’d simply made their turn when the light changed — perfectly reasonable, the intersection was clear — the two cars would have connected. And the one behind the red-light runner would have plowed into them.
There was a hesitation before everybody started moving again. We all knew what we’d just seen.
At the next light, I caught up once again with the car. Like most of us, I was curious to see who was driving. A flighty teenager on her phone? A senior with fading cognitive skills? Or someone like me, with a head full of worry?
It was a middle-aged man. There were two kids in the back seat. He was gripping the wheel and staring straight ahead. He looked terrified, and I knew he knew what he’d done. I wanted to tell him I’m glad he was safe, that he owed the safety of his kids to a patient driver, and that we all need that generosity of grace once in a while.
There is no way not to think about what is happening in our country, in the world. People we love are in danger, our jobs are changing or evaporating, and we are at war with an invisible adversary. We have to calm our children as our own anxiety ramps up, we worry about isolated parents, and we know most of our questions have no answers.
We are distracted, and we have to drive more cautiously than ever before. We know not to drive impaired, we’ve been begging everyone for years to put the phones away, but now we are facing the biggest distraction of all: our own worried minds.
Please stay safe.