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DRIVER'S SIDE DIATRIBE
By Al Vinikour     


At one time it was fairly common to develop a lung disease from working in steel mills, a coal mine or smoking heavily, living with smelly people or something as simple as driving down the highway. If anyone has ever seen movies of a cell of B-52s taking off at 20-second intervals — especially early-model D-Series — then they can visualize what the average busy highway looked like in the 1950s and 1960s.

The only concern about the environment then was the possibility of crops dying from discarded condoms from so many Indiana bred horn-dog teenagers parked on isolated farm roads and “doing bad.”

In 1962 I moved to Miami (Fla.). During those days one had to get a six-month vehicle inspection to ensure cars were safe enough and clean enough to drive on Dade County roads. In those days, driving a blue-smoking vehicle up Collins Avenue in Miami Beach was tantamount to being groomed for a prison cell.

Homey didn’t play those games and until a vehicle could cut down on excess pollution it simply didn’t (legally) belong on the road with “sedate” cars.  Eventually this requirement was dropped. I guess the junk car-lobby had some pull in either Tallahassee or the county office in downtown Miami.

I’ve been reminded of those halcyon days lately because there seems to be a return to those gagging days of yesteryear with more cars pumping out the pungent odor of an ill-maintained engine. I’m sure the economy has played a huge part in how people do or don’t maintain their vehicles. Not all cars can go 100,000 between tune-ups.

There are still lots of older vehicles around that require tune-ups every 10,000-15,000 miles. Consequently, when someone is faced with the choice of putting a box of Cheerios on his family’s breakfast table or feeding his 1967 Dodge a bowl full of spark plugs, the kids eat and the car smokes. Compound this with the economic conditions of depressed areas of the country and you have a cloud hovering over the roads like smokescreens for convoys during Atlantic crossings during World War II.

The difference is that as environmentally-dangerous as it is, at least the U-505’s Captain, Commander Kurt von Putz, isn’t looking at your car through his periscope and marking your bearing and range.

To prove my point, how many times have you been driving in traffic and you or someone in your vehicle would say, “What’s that horrible smell?” Once you’re convinced they’re not commenting on your review of your Mexican lunch you notice it as well. It’s the smell of a poorly-maintained car or truck. You can look ahead and easily pick out the apparently miscreant from a mile or more away.

If it isn’t smoking up a storm then at least its age and physical condition will give it away. Chances are when you finally get the opportunity to pass this jalopy and at least recoup a few weeks of your life that you’ve lost by following him for the last half-hour this guy has a cigarette dangling from his lips so of course he’s not going to notice his car or truck is pumping out a silo full of toxins.

There’s only one cruel, but sensible solution to this problem. There should be a series of geosynchronous-orbiting satellites with sensors that monitor carbon emissions from vehicles 120 miles below. Should a vehicle produce more than 15% over the maximum allowable numbers then a laser-firing cannon should zap the vehicle and vaporize it out of existence. What about the poor driver?

Well there’s good news, even better news and bad news.

The bad news is that the driver is probably now sharing meals with the aunt and uncle I hated until the day they died. The good news is that a vehicle that was slowly killing small rodents who live alongside the road and injuring the respiratory systems of my beloved farm animals has forever been removed from the highway. The even better news is that there is another job opening in that community where he lived.

It’s a win-win all around except for the dead guy who has to share meals with those two bastards who used to squeeze my cheeks when I was a young lad and call me a cute little fat boy. Snooki from New Jersey should be so cute.