DRIVER'S SIDE DIATRIBE
By Al Vinikour   

I have this dear friend whom I’ll call Jim (because to be honest, that’s his name) who I’m concerned may have a spastic foot. I say this because I drive with him often at the multitude of auto and truck reviewing programs we go to throughout the country, the world and even once, my beloved home state of Indiana, and seldom has he ever driven in a smooth fashion without having to resort to cruise control to make it happen.

When I went for my sleep studies program (no, I’m not referring to my scholastic history) it was discovered that not only do I have a high level of sleep apnea but I also have restless leg syndrome.

I have always assumed I had something like this because all my life I’ve tried to get away from unpleasant situations (like work) as quickly as I could and if that’s not a symptom of a restless leg I don’t know what is — medical license or NO medical license. (Full disclosure; when I was younger I was a freelance gynecologist but had to cease my practice when I sold my high-performance Ford which doubled as my clinic.)

When I fortified myself with enough adult beverages to watch the film of my leg shaking, rattling and rolling I was amazed. I then forgot about it until I started driving with Jim. No matter how hard he tried he could not drive evenly and talk at the same time. As I mentioned, he has to use cruise control to keep me from developing motion sickness on an interstate highway. If he doesn’t I might as well be alone with just my own vial thoughts and a talk-radio station streaming through the speakers telling me what to think.

The victim of a herky-jerky driver

Every so often I’ll watch other vehicles as they roll down the highway and for a good many of them, if I didn’t know better I’d say Jim was driving each one of them. They’re rolling forward and dropping in speed like some hillbilly is calling out the cadence at a square dance.

What in the name of all things Hoosier is so difficult about holding a gas pedal at a steady level without having to resort to technology to keep the rudder steady? Never one to let a money-making opportunity pass by I got to thinking about the possibility of teaching people the manly art of driving smoothly and talking to others in a vehicle at the same time!

After watching pictures beamed back from the Mars rover called Curiosity — which ironically was what our cabin inhabitants at Camp Warren when I was in sixth grade called ourselves when we’d slink out at night as a gang and peek into the windows of the girls’ cabin on the other side of the lake — and them showing the surface of the red planet and its similarity to the Mojave Desert near Lancaster, California, I found the location for my driving school.

It’s clear enough, flat enough and outside of an occasional rock brought in on the boot of the spacemen who roam the area when its dark, the only obstacle to a vehicle might be the occasional rattlesnake — doubled up, obviously, during mating season.

My crack team of instructors (who are comprised of crack addicts, thus the reference) will take students out for long drives in the desert and hold conversations with them. On the eighth day the student/teacher teams would drive straight into the desert and if the student were to exhibit signs of herky-jerky driving like Jim does on a normal day they would be dropped off where the offense occurred, with no flashlight, matches, water or Hershey bars and have to walk back to the school building.

This could be anywhere from a couple of hundred feet to 75 miles, depending on where the penalty is assessed. I guarantee you that the possibility of spending anywhere from one hour to five days wandering the Mojave Desert among all the exotic animals, serpents and arachnids who inhabit it will result in one of two things; the student will eventually pass the course with all the skills of Chuck Yeager flying an F-104; or they will be found two months later, dead of dehydration, with their last known meal having been themselves.

Bottom line, there is absolutely no reason to cause trouser crotch burn on a passenger who is merely sitting there minding his own business. The next time you see the latest desolate pictures come back from Curiosity notice the environment it lives in. If you don’t learn to drive and talk at the same time that same setting may be the last thing that goes through your brain (except for a fire arrow from one of the rogue Indian tribes who never surrendered to Uncle Sam in the 1800s).

This is your wake-up call; you, and hopefully Jim, will someday thank me for it.