“When in a rush, drive slowly.”
45 years ago, I received my first driver’s license. At that time, we lived in Riga, Latvia and only a few people actually owned their cars. I was working as a car mechanic (one of the ten occupations I had before becoming a mortgage broker) in a garage where we repaired trucks. I needed a driver’s license to move them in and out. I enrolled in the driving school for a yearlong course. It was offered through a military organization, which inadvertently saved me from going to the Army later on—but this is a separate story.
My actual driving experience came some years later, when we moved to Israel and I was able to afford my own car. Israelis are aggressive drivers and I became quite a pushy driver myself. Later on when we moved to the United States, I had the opportunity to drive in New York where I was at par with the local taxi drivers. But I also acquired some bad driving habits. One of them resulted in being stopped by a police officer for driving at 93 mph. With age, I mellowed down, but sometimes it is difficult to get rid of years of questionable driving practices.
But I was lucky—I’ve had no major accidents and not too many encounters with the police. As the world progresses and technology improves, it is becoming easier to get caught. Last week, I described my experience dealing with being “photographed” for a moving violation, which led to 8 hours of driving school. The court gave me a list of authorized traffic schools. After checking convenient hours, I ended up at the New Chinatown Traffic School, (which is actually located in the Sunset District at 2710 Vicente Street at 38th Ave). Samson Chung, who for many years has also worked as a driving instructor, taught the class. Despite the cost of the class ($45), plus the cost of the citation ($337), and the time I spent dealing with the whole process, at the end of the class I felt that it was a good investment of my time and money.
Driving a car is serious business and one needs to know the rules. After all, we have the responsibility for the safety, not only for our own lives, but also of those who get in our cars and those drivers and pedestrians who share the road with us. Unfortunately, there are a staggering number of fatalities on the road. The recent story which appeared in The New Yorker titled “Auto Correct”, describes the development of the self-driving cars by Google and some Automakers. It also pointed out that:
“Americans drive nearly three trillion miles a year, [the author] was told by Ron Medford, a former deputy administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration who now works for Google. It’s no wonder that we have thirty-two thousand fatalities along the way, he said. It’s a wonder the number is so low.”
Do we all have to learn how to drive and become more responsible, or just rely on the technological developments? I think that the first option is cheaper and easier to accomplish. After the class, I started stopping at yellow lights, stopped making U-turns in the middle of commercial streets, used my blinkers to signal turns, and paid attention to the pedestrians (all of those and other “small” violations lead to encounters with cops and cost a lot of money and time).
I drive a 10 year old Lexus SUV, but my wife Elfa likes smaller cars. She had a Mini Cooper, which she drove for 4 years with only 10,000 miles. When a light appeared on the dashboard, she drove her car to the dealership where she was told about a carbon buildup on the engine, which would cost about $1,700 to remove. I suggested that instead of using this money for the repair, to look for a new car. After some searching, we ended up with an electric Smart car. After all of the rebates, the dealership and government offered, it did not cost anything to get it out of the showroom with a three-year lease of $230/month (half of what she was paying for her Mini Cooper). We also became responsible citizens and saved some money! We were told that the electrical bill would only cost about $3.50/month for every 100 miles. Wow! The car industry has come a long way from the old ones (that I photographed in Havana), the sport ones we saw in Carmel—to the small electrical box on wheels. If you want to buy one in San Francisco, ask for Aleksey Keytiyev. He offered great help and good advice.
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