Category: cars

Tuesday’s Wandering Thoughts

Warning: short rant ahead.

I don’t know if laws, customs, or behaviors are changing when it comes to driving in Ashland, Oregon. I don’t think it’s a change law. Although I sometimes zone out of what’s going on locally, I believe I would have heard about a law changing how turn signals are used.

Note: turn signals are also called blinkers. More formerly, they’re called direction indicator lights.

See, I’ve noticed a new development here. Drivers stop. As you stop behind them and wonder why they’re stopped, they start to turn and then put on their turn signal.

WTF? I thought the idea behind turn signals was to communicate with other drivers and notify them of their intention to turn. Doing so reduces the chances of accidents and injuries. Already enough of that potential when people are driving around in these powerful metal machines.

I see it in all situations, including changing lanes and at traffic lights. Red light. Stopped. Green light. They move up, begin the turn, and then put on the signal. Meanwhile, the driver they faced was starting to go. Now they hesitate because what the other drive is doing is different from what they’re communicated. The communication confusion spills down the line.

Was the driver who didn’t use their turn signal really just changing their mind? Could happen. Sure. But it’s happening so often now, I’m dubious. And they consistently begin moving into the turn first, and then put on the signal. That strikes me as premeditated.

It happened to me this morning. A large late model Ford pickup truck was stopped in the lane ahead of me. As I closed on him, I could see that no one was in front of them.

Were they broken down? Lost or confused?

Maybe. Because after the traffic coming toward them thinned, the began turning left and then put on their signal.

Yes, they put on their signal after they started turning, after they’d been stopped for about twenty seconds.

It didn’t make sense. For the record, the driver looked white, and a male — I say that because of the beard — in their late twenties to early thirties.

I’m not the only person complaining about the lack of signals. A 2019 NYTimes article explored the same sort of problem.

The NYT article asks, “So what’s the problem here? Why don’t many drivers take this simple safety precaution? When asked about their bad habits in a national study, their explanations seemed confounding.

“The study by Response Insurance of Meriden, Conn., found that 42 percent of drivers claimed they didn’t have enough time to signal before turning. Nearly a quarter of drivers blamed laziness, while 17 percent said they skipped signaling because they were apt to forget to cancel the blinkers. Worth noting: Men admitted that they were more likely, by 62 percent to 53 percent, to change lanes without signaling.”

Laziness. Really? Turning on that signal is that challenging to their strength, attention, and energy?

My situation is a little different. Drivers here ARE turning their signal on, but not until they actually start turning.

I don’t understand what’s going on in their head. It’s such a simple thing. As the NYT article notes, “Is it that some drivers just don’t care about the other guy? If that’s the case, consider this: There is evidence that the act of signaling provides a cognitive benefit to the driver.

“When you turn on the turn signal, you’re turning on your brain,” said Chris Kaufmann, a driving school instructor who specializes in teaching people who drive V.I.P.s.”

My impression is that drivers not using signals until they’re in the turn unaware of the law or they’re not mentally involved in their driving. Maybe they’re on the phone, listening to the radio, or chatting to another in the car.

Driving a car is part of a system. When some drivers don’t follow the system’s rules, it starts breaking down. Maybe it’s anal of me, but that’s how I see it.

Probably just me.

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Friday’s Wandering Thoughts

A woman pushing a stroller with two infants down the sidewalk stopped to make adjustments. The sweet children looked less than a year old. A large pickup truck idled beside her, waiting for the light to change. He couldn’t help but think of the potential damages those poor children might be enduring.

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A White House Dream

I’ve always dreamed of houses, though I think those sort of dreams have tapered off in the last ten years. I had one again last night, though.

And it was confusing. A wealthy family was staying in this large and luxurious white house. My wife was with me, and we were young, and also staying there.

The house was for sale. It featured many layers set up in a cubist manner with steps connecting the square or rectangular rooms and halls. Exhibiting something of a mobious to the design (yes, kind of like M.C. Escher art), I found I could be in one end in a bedroom (there were many en suite bedrooms) and step one way and be on another level, in another room, on the building’s other end. Resolving to understand how it worked, I went about the house until I thought I’d gone through every room and knew my way around, and then started taking my wife around to show her.

Although the house was huge and way too large for us, I liked several of the rooms and rhetorically discussed with her which I liked. I speculated, too, on which room I would use as an office to write. Two really attracted me. I felt that both were too large. One had a bathroom and I thought that would be good to have. But because of the house’s design, people would sometimes need to walk through that room to reach other parts. Thinking that a disadvantage, I returned to the other room.

While this was happening, it was announced that the house had been sold. We wondered who bought it. The family staying there were’t the owners. We rarely encountered the parents, usually spying them walking through the house from a distance, but we frequently ran into the children. Early teenagers, they were rambunctious, mindless, wasteful, and destructive.

Going back to the other room that could be my office, my wife and I got in bed. The bed was just a mattress on legs, without head or foot boards, and there was no other furniture. I spooned her, pulled thick blankets up to our necks, and napped.

Some hubbub in another room woke us, pulling our attention. I went to see what was going on. Things had been damaged in another room. To be blunt, it was wrecked. I felt certain it was one of the male teenagers, because I’d seen him in that area with some of the damaged furniture, glassware, etc. So I told them what I’d seen before. He denied it but under questioning from his parents, with me pointing out some things, he confessed to what he did. As I walked away from this, I took more notice of that room. Its floor was white. I discovered one end had a raised circular dias, also white, and decided the room was set up as a party room, and that was a place where a small band could play. The room had a cutout running the length of a long wall and I speculated that the band could be playing on that platform or dias and be heard and seen from other rooms.

The dream ended with someone presenting me with a new car, a white Ferarri. Brand new, I admired the car but I dislike white cars. Thinking it would be rude to turn it down, I accepted the car. The last of the dream showed me getting into the car.

What intrigued me most about the dream when I awoke and thought about it was it similarity to a house I often dreamed of decades again. A recurring dream, I had a white house in a small town. When I explored that white dream house, I would discover doors to rooms and sections which I didn’t know I had. Sometimes other families would be living in those sections, leaving me confused about whether I owned it. But I also found myself in that house going to the house’s lowest realm, turning a corner, stepping through the door, and finding me back on the top, on the other end, just as in last night’s dream.

The other thing about both dreams is that these white houses were on the coast, looking out over blue ocean.

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A Dream Shard

Hearing something — can’t even saw what it was — today when I was in the coffee shop writing, I suddenly see a forgotten dream from last night. Really, just a shard. First person personal point of view, I’m driving in a car along a winding country highway. Leafy green trees blur by on either side. It sometimes seems like someone is with me but that’s inconsistent. I mostly seem to be alone.

Everything is going smoothly. I’m on a long road trip. Ahead is where I’m going to leave the country highway and jump onto the Interstate. The first road is climbing and turning. I split off. Cresting a ridge, the on-ramp veers left and goes down a steep hill and into intense banking as the ramp joins the Interstate and the Interstate goes left. Sunshine bathes the cars and roadway.

I won’t be on this road long, just a few miles. As I hit the banked curve and merge with the traffic, I press the brake pedal and recognize, I’m not slowing. Speed picks up despite greater pressure on the pedal. I announce, “I don’t have any brakes.” Someone in the other seat replies, “What?”

I repeat what I said and lean their way. But no one occupies the seat. I mutter, “I’m not on the road long. My exit is just ahead.” I can see it, a long, lean hill that ends at an intersection with a traffic light. “But I’m going to need to stop. I’ll add some brake fluid when I can. I think that’ll fix it. First, though, I need to stop.”

The car hits the exit ramp. It’s flying over bumps. Grinning, beginning to laugh, I kick out the floorboard. “Just do it like Fred Flintstone.” I put my feet down onto the cement road. Pressing the soles down with all my strength, I drag the car to a stop.

Dream end.

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Wednesday’s Wandering Thoughts

I’d noticed time and again how far back some people stop behind other cars at traffic lights. It surprises me to see a vehicle three to four car lengths behind the one in front of them. My wife always suggested that maybe something happened to them, and I agree; people carry baggage even as drivers. The things which happen to us often shape our behavior. Driving isn’t different. I recently learned about one driver and why she stops so far back.

My wife mentioned to her coffee group that I always wonder about it. A friend responded, “Well, he’d be wondering about me.” She then told a story about a serious traffic accident. She and the passenger barely survived. It was all about icy country roads on a snowy day and a car unable to stop behind them, pushing them forward and off an embankment into a ravine.

See, I still don’t understand why she would stop so far back when it was a car hitting her from behind that caused the issue, with exigent circumstances influencing the situation.

But I recognize that I’m trying to apply logic to what is emotional for her. In the end, I remind myself, what difference does it make how far back she stops? It bothers me on an intellectual level, but that’s my problem.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Mood: coffeemistic

Sunny blue skies greeted me in my home in Ashlandia, where orange barrels block streets as paving, repairs, and improvements continue and the roads are above average.

Already November 3, 2023, some folks are marking their calendars for next year’s elections. It’s also Friday, end of the work week for some and beginning of the weekend fun for others. Those of us in a quasi-, semi-, or permanent retirement state mostly look at the door with an eye toward social engagements. ‘Work’ except as volunteers, has mostly been dismissed.

As I prepared the floof royalty’s meals this morning, a glance out the window found gray smudges defacing the blue-sky fall scene. At least, I hope it’s fog, I thought with a chortle, and then imagined other possibilities, entertaining myself as I went about my business. Another glance out, and I perceived a wall of fall stealing in from the northwest quadrant. Six minutes later, the fog presented a solid front and the sky was gray. An hour after that, the fog is gone.

While it’s 48 now, we’re expecting our high to be in the upper sixties, ingredients for a enjoyable autumn day.

Moving on toward the theme song, a friend queried a group of us by email, do you remember this song? Who sang it? He was just playing around, of course:

He wears tan shoes with pink shoelaces
A polka dot vest and man, oh, man
He wears tan shoes with pink shoelaces
And a big Panama with a purple hat band

It’s Dodie Stevens with “Pink Shoe Laces” from 1961, of course. That started a firestorm of memories for the group and their wives. One spouse was really excited because it was her and her sister’s favorite song. They played it all the time while dancing around the house. Remember this, she began singing it and dancing around the house, and then called her sister, and they had Siri playing the song on the phone while they danced and laughed.

That opened the door on a vault in my head, where certain songs I know but am not crazy about resides. Reaching in, The Neurons pulled out a 1958 novelty song, “Beep Beep” by the Playmates and have it on loop in my morning mental music stream (Trademark dashing).

Behind the song is a car, a Rambler, product in my lifetime of a now defunct US car company, the American Motors Corporation. I had a friend with a Rambler. Although old, we used it to sneak people into the drive-in theater in the little car’s spacious trunk in the early 1970s. It was just like the one in the photo.

Also featured in the song was a Cadillac, a car much more expensive than the Rambler. More expensive, the Cadillac had a larger engine and was more powerful, capable of greater acceleration and top speed than the Rambler. That forms the song’s gist as the Rambler tails the Cadillac and the Cadillac keeps speeding up to get away, but can’t, astonishing and amazing to the Caddy driver. As this unfolds during the song, the song’s tempo keeps increasing until the punchline when the Rambler driver pulls alongside and asks, “Hey buddy, how do I get this car out of second gear?”

While riding in my Cadillac, what, to my surprise,
A little Nash Rambler was following me, about one-third my size.
The guy must have wanted it to pass me up
As he kept on tooting his horn. Beep! Beep!
I’ll show him that a Cadillac is not a car to scorn.

Refrain:
Beep, beep. (Beep, beep.)
Beep, beep. (Beep, beep.)
His horn went, beep, beep, beep. (Beep! Beep!).

I pushed my foot down to the floor to give the guy the shake,
But the little Nash Rambler stayed right behind; he still had on his brake.
He must have thought his car had more guts
As he kept on tooting his horn. Beep! Beep!
I’ll show him that a Cadillac is not a car to scorn.

Beep, beep. (Beep, beep.)
Beep, beep. (Beep, beep.)
His horn went, beep, beep, beep. (Beep! Beep!).

My car went into passing gear and we took off with dust.
And soon we were doin’ ninety, must have left him in the dust.
When I peeked in the mirror of my car,
I couldn’t believe my eyes.
The little Nash Rambler was right behind, you’d think that guy could fly.

Beep, beep. (Beep, beep.)
Beep, beep. (Beep, beep.)
His horn went, beep, beep, beep. (Beep! Beep!).

Now we’re doing a hundred and ten, it certainly was a race.
For a Rambler to pass a Caddy would be a big disgrace.
For the guy who wanted to pass me,
He kept on tooting his horn. Beep! Beep!
I’ll show him that a Cadillac is not a car to scorn.

Beep, beep. (Beep, beep.)
Beep, beep. (Beep, beep.)
His horn went, beep, beep, beep. (Beep! Beep!).

Now we’re doing a hundred and twenty, as fast as I could go.
The Rambler pulled alongside of me as if I were going slow.
The fellow rolled down his window and yelled for me to hear,
Hey, buddy, how can I get this car out of second gear?

h/t SongFacts.com

What a hoot, when I was young. I would sing it in the car with Mom as we drove along, driving her a little nuts.

Stay pos, be strong, and keep leaning forward and reaching for the stars. Coffee is being consumed and the sun is shining. And away we go.

Cheers

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Wednesday’s Wandering Thoughts

This morning delivered light serendipity.

Waiting to turn, he was behind a silver third generation Toyota Prius and a current series Dodge Ram pickup, also in silver. Both turned left, and he did the same.

As the three accelerated down the boulevard, he checked the oncoming traffic: a silver third generation Toyota Prius, and a current series silver Dodge Ram pickup. From his angle, the two pairs of vehicles were identical.

He laughed as the cars and trucks passed each other, wondering if their drivers noticed what he was seeing and about the odds for this happening.

It would have been really freaky if a car like mine was behind the other two doppelvehicles coming my way, especially if the driver looked like me.

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Thursday’s Wandering Thoughts

Here we go. Thursday ends in a y, so it must be time for me to rant.

Subject: Are more people running red lights?

It seemed like that was rare for me to witness anywhere outside of Japan, which was over thirty years ago. I’d see one sometimes in the Bay area, especially in San Jose.

Now, here in little Ashland, I typically witness two cars or more a day running red lights. I rarely if ever saw them before the COVID era began. Now they’re increasing. While some are people turning left across traffic and waiting for an opening that doesn’t come until the light changes, the huge percentage are going straight, speeding up to hurtle through an intersection before the light goes red.

They often don’t make it. People get the green light and begin to go and then, here comes the red light runner, forcing everyone with the green light and right of way to slam on their brakes. I often witness very close calls between vehicles, or the speeding vehicle and cyclists or passengers.

It reminds me of the one crash I saw when someone ran the redlight.

This was around 1997. We were living in Mountain View, California, and had decided to go to the Mall of America in Milpitas. Stopped at a traffic light, I realized I needed to be in the lane to the right. Only one car inhabited it, so I thought I’d delay until they went and then shift over.

The light changed. The car in the next lane started off. I followed.

Suddenly, here comes a Cadillac sedan. Running the light from my left, they slammed into the driver’s side of the first car.

That could’ve easily been me.

We went right, around the block, coming back to check on the cars. Took a few minutes and by the time we arrived, the cops were there and the people from the crash were in a parking lot. But my wife and I stopped anyway, to share what we witnessed, and to check on the people.

As we approached, we heard the young female driver whose car was hit say with heavy sobbing, “I thought the light had changed.” On the parking lot’s other side, an old man paced while an elderly woman fumed beside him, arms crossed, lips tight.

I immediately said to the young driver, “It had changed. I was there. It was green when you went.”

The cops looked at me and asked who I was. I explained it all. My wife and I verified, the light was absolutely green when the woman went forward.

I heard the fuming woman say, “You’re always doing this. I knew this was going to happen.” As I looked her way, she finished to the old man, “You’re lucky you haven’t killed someone yet, but you will, if you don’t change.”

Watching these people taking greater and greater risk, I often now think the same thing which that woman said that day.

3

White Corvette Dream

The dream began when my wife and I, young people in our early twenties, were driving a red and white Chevy S10 pickup along winding roads. (My father drove a pickup just like this when I was in my twenties.) The roads were well-paved and we encountered no problems. It seemed to be a pleasure drive.

Returning to a house where I think we lived (it wasn’t clear in the dreamscape), we encountered Dad. He was tipsy, surprising me. He greeted us and then gave me a rambling speech and presented me with two checks, telling me, “This is for the hardship I’ve given you.” I protested that it wasn’t necessary, everyone makes mistakes, and so one, but he was adamant.

He went off and I went off. Finding my wife, I told her about it.

I was then outside, looking up at the blue sky. The moon and the sun drifted and floated across the sky’s highest reaches, leaving me startled because they don’t usually drift like an unmoored ship. Cartoon animals began crossing the sky with most changing and becoming something else as they did. One cartoon began very tiny and then grew into a small bunny as it crossed the sky, growing into a larger bunny, transforming from a cartoon creature into a real rabbit, which finished by bounding across the horizon.

Laughing and smiling, I tried telling others about this, but no one was interested beyond what they were doing, which disappointed me. One of my younger sisters then noticed the sky and announced it, and everyone stopped what they were doing to ooh and ah over the sky, irritating and exasperating me. I complained to them about it; all replied that they hadn’t heard me.

Back in the house with my dad, I told him that I need to go to the bank to deposit his checks and tried giving them back to him. He wouldn’t take them back and then declared that he had a check that needed deposited in his account and asked me to do that, scribbling out a check and signing it as he spoke. I took the check but then thought, Dad doesn’t have an account in my bank, does he? Also, he hadn’t give me acount information, although I supposed that they could get the info from the check. The whole exchange left me confused.

But I walked through the house and went upstairs to the bank. Two bank employees were waiting for me there. They already had Dad’s check but then swapped it with the one I had and destroyed the other one. While all this was going on, they sketched what they were doing but spoke so fast that I understood none of it.

Returning to the house and my wife, we went down concrete steps into a well-lit concrete garage. It was like a small maze of different garages but they were all mine.

We entered one of them and found a white 1981 Corvette with a red interior. (By happenstance, Dad had a ’81 Corvette but it was dark blue.)

The car was immaculate. As my wife and I took it in, I said, “I’d forgotten that I had this.”

She said, “Let’s take it for a ride.”

Her request surprised me but she was already getting into the car, taking the driver’s seat. My surprise doubled at that point; this wasn’t the kind of car she liked driving. I tried talking her out of it, pointing out the car’s power and that it’s a manual (she doesn’t know how to drive a manual) but she remained insistent and enthusiastic that she wanted to take it for a ride.

The dream ended with me getting in the other seat as she leaned forward and reached for the key already in the ignition.

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