The days of driving dangerously
I remember the first time my brother taught me to drive. My mental checklist used to be so simple, directly proportional to the simpler times back then.
Lock doors. Clutch. Brake. Ignition. Handbrake. Gear. Gas pedal. Go. (I have to admit, I belong to the generation that didn’t worry too much about seat belts yet).
Now, that checklist has ballooned.
Lock doors. Seatbelt (yes, generations grow up, too). Brake. Ignition (I drive automatic these days. Clutch-free). Handbrake. Gas pedal. How much is the gas today? Lock doors (when your route takes you through C-5 traffic past the Market Market area, you double check your locks because of those urchins who pry open unlocked doors and whisk off with whatever they can get their hands on).
And your mind doesn’t stop making checklists while driving.
Check side mirrors. With carjacking on the rise, you tend to be a little paranoid when heavily-tinted vans or motorcycles carrying two men in dark shades creep up on you. Are there buses? Are there jeeps around? Stay clear as much as possible.
What’s the best route to take without getting stuck in the middle of a mind-melting traffic jam?
For someone who used to just take off in his car without any specific destination just to savor the journey and be surprised at where he ends up, that lengthy mental checklist is a little bit sad. Even in the safest environment, you still have to worry if your driving is fuel-efficient (yes, sometimes it’s not the engine, it’s the way you drive) because your monthly gas money now ranks first in your monthly expenditures.
Driving used to accomplish so many things, way beyond its intended purpose of merely taking a driver from one point to another.
It used to be some sort of status symbol in our humble household. When you were trusted to drive your grandmother to the market, you were made. You were the sage among siblings and cousins, the one who gets to decide what the entire family litter plays for its afternoon game.
During big family get-togethers when we would convoy to some beach hideaway, the designated drivers would often huddle together over grilled food and cold beverages to talk about the trip. And if you listened to them, you would tell yourself that one day, you’d be part of such conversations.
As I grew older, driving became a need because of the job, but the joy never disappeared. In fact, driving was a stress reliever. When you get home late and there’s nothing much on cable TV (Internet wasn’t much of an option then), you simply plop into the driver’s seat push an old Beatles CD into the stereo and drive off with open windows, letting the wind guide you to where you would wind up (for some reason, Antipolo was a frequent haunt while during more daring evenings, Tagaytay would beckon).
Driving cleared one’s head. And most of the time, that clarity solved problems that earlier in the day caused a major mental gridlock only because the mind was too cluttered to process what would turn out to be surprisingly easy solutions.
I wish I could say the same thing nowadays.
Long trips to the province (the girlfriend is from Nueva Ecija) still bring out the joy in driving, where the scenery brushes by your window like a series of animated strips, but it isn’t an uninterrupted happiness. You end up constantly checking the gas gauge and compute liter-to-kilometer ratios and later factoring peso-per-liter into the equation.
City driving is even a more terrible ordeal. Security concerns, the absence of discipline. Snarky, insidious traffic enforcers out to make a quick buck at the expense of a hapless motorist. And fuel efficiency plunges with all the idling and low-gear crawling during traffic tie-ups.
A friend of mine from high school thought up a novel solution.
“I just might buy a motorcycle,” he said.
But it isn’t just the same, with all due respect to avid motorcyclists.
Sometimes, though, you do get lucky.
Sometimes you cruise through holiday streets with nary a hassle and you just drop your intended destination and let the car take you where the wind blows. You end up in a familiar place from a familiar time where you can park your car, pop open a cold cola, listen to the radio and just let your mind drift—confident in the thought that the drive back will be a cruise too.
But those days are few and far in between. More often than not, you end up waiting almost impatiently for the green light in some hopeless intersection, with a wisp of longing tickling your heart.
Driving. Life. Two things you wish you could take back to far more simple times.
