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Thoughts for the road

When I was 15 years old my parents, both of them, lost their minds.
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When I was 15 years old my parents, both of them, lost their minds. Having ever hewn to the broad middle of the road, they veered unexpectedly toward the shoulder… and just kept going, careening off into an abyss of flawed logic, unreason and profound irresponsibility.

I was overjoyed.

For years I’ve lived with the heavy burden of understanding I was responsible for them going off their nutters. I don’t have any recollection of wearing their sanity away by doing my best Bart Simpson impersonation, “Can I have a motorcycle? Can I have a motorcycle? Can I have a motorcycle?” In fact, I very clearly remember being stunned when it became clear they’d gone bonkers and were going to let me have a motorcycle. It was my first dog-catches-car experience. Except I knew exactly what to do with a motorcycle.

Motorcycle may be a bit euphemistic. It was a motorcycle I wanted. Not just any motorcycle. The motorcycle. A Triumph Bonneville to be exact. A ’66 Triumph Bonneville if you require more precision.

There are several readers — just a wild guess — of the aging male persuasion whose heart just skipped a beat. That’s because there were three years in the middle-late 1960s when Triumph reached heights it would never reach again. Its engine was powerful but, more importantly, hit an exhaust note, a whole symphony actually, that resonated in a deep recess of the male brain, the one that controls(sic) unbridled envy and desire. Adding even more urgency to feelings of longing, it hit it through the most beautiful set of chrome mufflers ever bolted onto two wheels. Balance, agility, speed, design, the Bonnie had it all at a time when the best Harley Davidson could do was pop out overweight cop bikes.

It was a number of years later when I finally discovered the Bonnie was a tart. Its power was accompanied by unstoppable oil leaks from every mating surface on its engine, evidenced by an abstract design of oil stains running up the insides of both legs, from the knees down, of every pair of jeans I owned.

Its true Achilles’ heel though was the abysmal collection of string, wire and chewing gum and inert metal bits that passed for electronics. Made by the storied English company Lucas — dismissively referred to by everyone familiar with them as Mucus — it took no more than a small, shallow puddle to bring the beast to a sputtering halt. I still know where one is buried in the desert west of Albuquerque… but that’s another story.

Still, for all its mechanical failures, the Bonnie was a chick magnet. And I needed all the help I could get, though I suspect it would have taken a whole fleet of ’em for that particular feature to have really been of much assistance to me in tricking some 15-year-old girl into overlooking my inherent dorkiness.

The motorcycle I got was most definitely not a chick magnet though. Unlovely, underpowered, Japanese, it was, nonetheless, a thing of beauty to me. It meant I didn’t need to wait around to be taken somewhere I really wanted to go. It meant I could wander way further afield than I could on my bicycle and, given the relatively benign climate where I lived, could do it all year round. It meant I could run with a pack of equally dorky 15 year olds with anemic motorcycles.

It meant I could play in traffic.

That I lived to tell this story bears witness to the incredible luck that has accompanied me through life. It’s the same luck that delivered me from Vietnam, that got me to Canada, that got me a good job, that let me screw up the courage to leave a good job, move to Whistler and become a ski bum. May it never run out.

But riding that motorcycle, long before I could legally drive a car, also gave me some insight into driving. Especially insight into how little attention so many drivers pay to the task at hand. When you ride a motorcycle, paying attention — and luck… okay, maybe skill too — is the only thing that keeps you from becoming a grease spot on the road. Cars are only one of many enemies. Road conditions, gravel, crappy tires, too much enthusiasm, frigging birds pecking at roadkill who fly up and hit you in the chest — don’t ask — can toss you on your ass before you know whether your ass is still attached.

Cars are worst though. Every motorcyclist does a dance with drivers, a dance to make eye contact. It’s the only way you can know you’ve been seen and even then, you can’t be absolutely sure the image of you on two wheels registered in the brain of a driver distracted by doing so many things other than paying attention to driving.

I think everyone who wants to drive a car should spend time on a motorcycle before they ever get behind a steering wheel. They’ll either get dead or they’ll cultivate a keener appreciation of how much active attention it takes to actually get from point A to point B. It won’t stop people from driving carelessly. It won’t stop them from being too comfortable or too distracted in a modern car. It won’t stop them from fiddling with music, GPS, DVDs, 87-way adjustable seats, cruise-control, kids acting up in the backseat, the taco that just dribbled into their lap, the Big Gulp that doesn’t quite fit in any of the 13 cup holders, the cell signal that fades out just as their spouse reminds them to stop and pick up some milk on the way home, or any of the other, more egregious distractions they let come between them and what they ought to be doing.

But it might help them remember it’s only their attention that stands between control and out-of-control.

Just under half of all traffic screwups involve alcohol. I can understand why those people might have gotten into a collision. What were the other half doing instead of driving?

Once again, we’ve lost some people dear to us. Once again, we wonder what we can do to keep from losing more. More cops won’t help, though I’m always amazed that I never see any on the highway. Better roads won’t help; they only encourage more speed and less attention.

The only thing that’ll help is paying attention to the task at hand — getting to where you’re going in one piece — respecting the limitations of your car, your skills and the road conditions, including the skills, cars and attention of the rest of the boys and girls you’re sharing the road with.

Luck will help too. But we press the hell out of that around here, don’t we?