Young, Stupid, Yet Still Alive

The first time I ever thought I was going to die was when I passed a car at the top of a hill on U.S. Route 1 in Maine, somewhere south of Rockland and north of Bath. I was doing about 90 mph to his 25 and came up on him too fast. There was nowhere to go but through him or around him. I went around. And lived to tell the tale. Had a car been coming in the other direction, I wouldn’t be here writing this.

I was eighteen, and I was driving a company car to make a delivery from my employer to one of our clients in another part of the state. Before the Internet, the fastest way to transfer product between far-flung towns was by automobile. The young driver with a lead foot and a cavalier attitude toward his own mortality (not to mention the lives and safety of everyone else on the road) was certainly the weak link in the whole operation.

Earlier this year, I received an essay from a college freshman recounting a two-car race he and his high school buddy conducted on Interstate 95 north of Old Town in which they hit speeds in excess 140 mph. It seems that “boys will be boys” across generations.

At least that’s the way we explain away the cost of the car culture in unrealized American lives. We don’t just accept dangerously foolish behavior by young men in cars, we mythologize it. I would have seen the movie Rebel Without a Cause by the time my employers entrusted me with their vehicle and their product. James Dean and another teenager drive their cars over a cliff in a competition to see who can wait the longest to jump to safety. His opponent didn’t make it. Neither, for long, did James Dean. He only appeared in three films, but seven decades after his death in a car at twenty-four, he’s still a folk hero.

Many towns in Maine have lost a beloved teenage son or daughter in a car crash. Their graves are often large and elaborate, kept up over the years of what should have been their lives by bereaved families. Some families also maintain roadside memorials at the death sites. It seems everyone knows someone who’s been killed or maimed in a car crash. And yet we resist meaningful change to a transportation system that kills tens of thousands of our loved ones every year.

We downplay the cost of car crashes in lost and interrupted lives, as well as the strain on our health care system. According to the American Automobile Association, car crashes cost nearly $300 billion per year in this country alone. Some 2.5 million Americans – nearly 7,000 per day – are treated in emergency rooms for car-related injuries.

Is this an acceptable price to pay for the perceived convenience and freedom of commuter traffic and rural living?

Humans are poor judges of comparative risk. We worry about flying in airplanes when the most dangerous part of flying is driving to the airport. Driving feels safer because many of us do it every day. Driving a car gives you the illusion of control. In an airplane, you’re at the mercy of the pilot. The pilot is a trained professional (as are bus drivers and train conductors), while the average driver is not, but the illusion persists.

A reality check would seem to be overdue.

Thankfully, I internalized this lesson before I killed myself or someone else. On those rare occasions when I get behind the wheel these days, I drive like the old man I’ve become – meaning that I obey the speed limit and accept the ire of impatient drivers all around me. I would hate to meet my 18-year-old self on the road. But until we treat their behavior as the serious threat that it is, young men will continue to do stupid things in cars. Some of them won’t be able to laugh about it afterwards.