The Last Time I Ever Drove a Car

I was driving east just below the high hill on South Gennesee St. and starting to turn left into one of the side streets. Suddenly I hit the break as a small gray vehicle sped by blocking my turn. I don’t know how it got there. A nanosecond before, the coast had been clear. It was as if the car had materialized out of the void of that dreary November afternoon. I inhaled a sigh of relief that I did not hit the car, but exhaled cold shock as the car veered right off the street busting a telephone pole in half. The upper half of the pole hung limply from its wires balancing itself against the lower half.

A small Vietnamese woman climbed out of the car followed by about half dozen pre-school aged children. The woman stood with hands on hips glaring at me in rage. The children stared wide eyed and trembling. One slight waif of a girl in a white silk party dress and ski jacket started crying uncontrollably, a high pitched wail that cut through the city noise like a police siren.

The date was Sunday, November 28, 1999, two days before the big World Trade Organization protests. It was one of those winter days in Seattle that never quite achieve true dayness but remain in a state of perpetual twilight. The sky glowed gray like the light in a mirror reflector microscope with an untimely darkness already beginning to pull down the unwelcome curtain of night. But I had been on a mission, driving my husband’s charcoal gray 1990 Oldsmobile mini-van around town borrowing bedding to accommodate twelve Pilipino activists scheduled to spend the week camped on my living room floor. My last stop was to be at the home of my friend, Jan, who had promised me the loan of a comfortable air mattress. That would have to wait.

I don’t know how long I just sat there in the van in the middle of the street, unable to move a muscle. It was as though, like Lot’s wife, I had turned] into a pillar of salt. But soon I began to tremble and my teeth to chatter. Cars from both directions scolded with their horns. It crossed my mind that I ought to stay put until the police came, but I was blocking traffic in both directions. So after the cars had edged around me and the coast was surely clear, I crept on into the side street and parked the van along side the curb.

Despite my state of shock, I decide to get out and go check on the woman and her children. A crowd was gathering around the family all giving me evil, angry looks. One woman ran out of her house, her long blonde pony bobbing up and down. She pointed a long skinny finger at me and shrieked, “She cut her off!”

I was still trembling and my teeth chattering. “I -- .I’m so, so sorry,” I stammered over and over as people glared at me vindictively and fired criticisms like, “Why don’t you watch where you’re going? “What’s wrong with you? Are you drunk?”

Soon a policeman pulled up and got out of his car. His round red face and tiny eyes gazed at me with a stoic, almost sympathetic expression as though a severed phone pole were an every day occurrence. He gave me some forms and told me to get back in the van, fill them out and wait. From inside the van, I could see him talking to people and taking notes. An ambulance showed up. The family all piled into it together and were taken away. Still the policeman continued listening to the spectators, or should I say witnesses. I am not a judgmental person myself, but I could sympathize with them. Most people in this neighborhood were of a progressive frame of mind and would be eager to defend an innocent minority family against the careless infractions of a tall white woman in a big automobile.

I waited for what seemed an eternity, continuing to tremble especially as I got colder with the engine off. I reached for one of the blankets from my borrowed collection in back of the van and wrapped it around me. Then I closed my eyes to calm myself. Now I could think about the possible consequences of all this and what to do. Our car insurance company would be sued. They would either cancel our insurance or drastically raise the premiums. It did not look like anyone had been hurt, but, if not, why the ambulance?

It did not take me long to make a decision that has drastically changed my life. The solution was obvious. I would finish my final errand for the day and drive the van home. I would place the keys in the little china dish with the lid where we kept such things, and I would never drive again.

In the last several years I had only driven a car as a last resort anyway. I preferred going to work and almost everywhere else by bike and/or bus. The reason I happened to be driving that day was because my bicycle panniers were too small for the cargo I was carrying. I could get a week’s groceries on my bike, but not piles of blankets and pillows. Besides the fact that I loved bicycling and hated driving, I did not feel safe operating large fast vehicles because of my exotropia (wall eyedness). Every couple of years there had been a fender bender. Now this. I did not need this.

It was after dark by the time the police officer returned to my vehicle. I rolled down the window and he handed me a citation for “inattentive driving.”

“Was anyone hurt?” I asked.

The officer shook his head. “Naw, I don’t think so. The medics checked them out and said they were okay. But they took them to the emergency room anyway just in case.”

“Thank God,” I said.

Thinking back on the incident with the hind sight of so many years, I wonder if I really was entirely to blame for the accident. Maybe I should have defended myself. After all, the other woman must have been driving like a bat out of purgatory to get over the hill and in front of my car before I saw it. If she had not been speeding, she might have been able to control her car and not hit the phone pole, or at least the impact might not have broken the thing in half. But I am timid about sticking up for myself. Besides I have never regretted my hastily made decision. It has been a great relief to remove driving from my life.

That evening I went to a Unitarian church service where people get up, light candles and talk about joys and sorrows of their lives. I lit a candle and explained that due to my vision problems, I had caused an accident that day. I promised to surrender my driver’s license and never drive again. I said my only concern was that I might not be able to get as much done if I had to spend more time on the bus.

After the service a young woman came up to me and said she did not drive a car because she could not afford one. “But,” she said, “There are lots of things you can do on the bus. I don’t trim my toe nails on the bus,” she laughed, “But I have thought of it.” Me, I just read on the bus, observe the world, and relax. That is more fun than driving and not nearly so dangerous. .

The Rewards of Bike-Busing

Some people stare in wide eyed wonder at the sight of a wrinkly faced female biker pumping up the street with little tufts of white hair sticking out the sides of her helmet. It’s as if they think an older woman doesn’t belong on a bike. I don’t understand this. Back in the seventies I lived in Germany where a bike was considered the most normal and natural way for an old lady to get around. A common site in villages and along the Berg Strasse was that of a typical gray haired widow pedaling by in her calf length black mourning dress and woolen head scarf with a wire rack of groceries on the handle bars of a one speed bike. By contrast, it’s pretty easy to run errands on a twenty one geared Diamondback City-Cross equipped with flashing lights and water proof panniers big enough to hold a week’s worth of groceries.
When I tell people I don’t have a license to drive a car, jaws drop. ”What a shame! How do you manage?” They feel sorry for me.
“They don’t understand. It’s the other way around. I feel sorry for them!” Automobile drivers put themselves under an awful lot of stress and shorten their life expectancy. Besides, they miss so much joie de vivre by condemning themselves to solitary confinement in one of those motorized wheel cages to get around town.

Now be honest. Can you really see where you’re going on a rainy night when the water gushing down your windshield picks up the glare of street lamps and headlights from thousands of other cars? On such a night, try putting on good gortex rain gear, getting out of your car and onto a bike. Your vision will improve a hundred percent. Instead of blinding you, the street lights will turn rain puddles into pools of molten gold. Traffic lights and headlights will blink at you cheerily from the distance. Rain drops will turn into tiny fairy lanterns falling past the bike lamp on your handle bars. Others will touch your cheeks like little elf kisses, soft and cool.. Suddenly you will come alive, experiencing the weather the way the Universe meant for you to.
I feel especially sorry for automobilers boarding the ferry. They miss all the fun. They don’t get to stand on the landing and watch the attendants wind the giant lines around the mammoth cleats. They don’t get to see how deftly the big boat slips into its mooring. They can’t talk with the attendants, hear their jokes and gossip nor eaves-drop on other peoples’ lives.

That’s the worst part about an single occupancy vehicle! You don’t get to talk to anybody. If you were to wave or say hello, no one would see or hear you. The best part about bike-bussing is that it’s social. Another old lady notices how much fun I’m having and gives me thumbs up with a grin. Strangers stop to talk with me as I wait at traffic lights. How lonely life would be without the occasional chat with a neighbor at the corner bus stop!

Once a friend asked me how much extra time it takes to bike-bus to work instead of driving a car. I thought about that for a second. “None,” I said. When I’m on the bus, that’s when I get my reading done. When I’m biking, that’s when I get my exercise. If I drove a car to work, when I got home I would have to figure out when I was going to get my reading and exercise done.” It has always puzzled me that people drive cars to the gym for exercise.

Some people look at me and say, “She’s a tough old broad!.”
On the contrary, I’m a wimp. I avoid uphills whenever possible. And contrary to prevailing myth, you can circumvent a lot of Seattle’s hills with a well planned route. For instance, if I’m going up to Beacon Hill, I can take bus #106 up there and bike the Chief Sealth Trail back down. But even without using the bus, there are lots of ways to go around hills. I’ll go a couple of miles out of my way to avoid a steep incline. Strong, young bikers tend to chose Beacon Hill as the route down town from my neighborhood. Not me. I take Rainier Ave and/or MLK.

“What? You take the busiest arterials?!”.

“Yes but I bike much of the way on sidewalks.”

“The manual says bikers are supposed to act like cars and NEVER ride on the sidewalk!”

That rule was made for young fast bikers. There is an unwritten dispensation for pokey old ladies. Most of the sidewalks around here are rarely used by pedestrians. They’re virtual bicycle freeways. At my snail’s pace, how could I choose to stumble along the gutter of a busy street with raucous speedy monsters breathing foul engine smoke down my neck when I could be on an endless stretch of adjacent empty sidewalk?
Another mistaken assumption is that a bike-bus life style is a badge of courage because you have to be outdoors in cold, wet weather. As I arrive at a destination, someone will ask whether I’m cold. Obviously that person has never been on a bike. Actually I am the most cold-intolerant sissy on the planet. But all bundled up in polypropylene and gortex, I am more likely to be too hot than too cold pedaling my bike. And I never wait long on a cold, dark street corner for a bus. A bus route across town may feature as many as three busses, thus requiring two waits at transfer points. Not so for the bike-busser. If the expected wait is longer than five minutes, I bike that stretch instead. Then when I get where I’m going I don’t have to waste time searching for a parking space.
In fact, it is a best kept secret that one of the most time efficient ways to get around Puget Sound is by a combination of bike, bus, and ferry. Come to think of it, maybe I shouldn’t publish this because then the secret will be out. After all, there are only two bike rack spaces on the average bus. But that’s alright. If bike-bussing gets too popular, Metro will just have to install more.

Besides being economical with time, bike bussing is incredibly easy on your pocket book. If a bus ride is part of my trip, I only have to pay a quarter – yes, that’s just twenty five cents – with my senior citizen pass. Then biking fuel is free, except for maybe the cost of an extra banana or two. Not to mention the low environmental cost. Bikes don’t give off green house gases, and for obvious reasons, I tend to shop locally whenever possible. You aren’t likely to find me patronizing big warehouses out along the freeway. Bike-bussing is one of the best ways to reduce your carbon foot print and help save Mother Earth .
Try it. You might like it.