When I bought my Miata 25-plus years ago, most local highways were still limited to 55 mph. The average vehicle on the road was a Toyota Camry.
Today we’re easily doing 80 on the highways, sharing the road with 5000-pound Ford pickups. Lifted. With giant tires. Possibly with the nose pointed up. Likely helmed by someone who never attended a driving school.
A friend of mine, who also favors smaller, classic sports cars, once put it this way: You have to drive like everyone out there is trying to kill you.
He’s very much not wrong.
My usual when in the Miata–or the Porsche or anything on the smaller side of things? One finger on the horn, eyes constantly scanning for a threat.
The main goal: Sail in the clearest waters, even if that means a slightly slower pace–which is fine with me as running the Miata with I-4 traffic usually means about 4200 rpm. I just want to enjoy the drive and get where I need to get in one piece. Please be easy on me; I was born in the 1900s.
A historical prediction for these times? Ever read Richard Foster’s “A Nice Morning Drive?” It appeared in the November 1973 issue of Road & Track.
No?
Perhaps you know the song it inspired: Rush’s “Red Barchetta.” You can find it on side 1, track 2, from the band’s 1981 landmark album “Moving Pictures.”
“I strip away the old debris
That hides a shining car
A brilliant red Barchetta
From a better vanished time
I fire up the willing engine
Responding with a roar
Tires spitting gravel
I commit my weekly crime”
The opening of the original work?
“It was a fine morning in March 1982. The warm weather and clear sky gave promise of an early spring. Buzz had arisen early that morning, impatiently eaten breakfast and gone to the garage. Opening the door, he saw the sunshine bounce off the gleaming hood of his 15-year-old MGB roadster. After carefully checking the fluid levels, tire pressures and ignition wires, Buzz slid behind the wheel and cranked the engine, which immediately fired to life. He thought happily of the next few hours he would spend with the car, but his happiness was clouded–it was not as easy as it used to be.”
Both protagonists encounter a menace: a giant vehicle bent on disrupting the day.
The short story further details the threat. Thanks to government regulations–and with most other societal ills handled–government officials of the late ’70s focused on a particular threat: the automobile.
“The regulations concerning safety became tougher. Cars became larger, heavier, less efficient. They consumed gasoline so voraciously that the United States had had to become a major ally with the Arabian countries.”
These new, modern cars, dubbed MSVs, short for Modern Safety Vehicles, ran some 6000 pounds. They were safe as promised, able to survive a 50 mph impact.
But maybe that wasn’t good news for everyone:
“It hadn’t taken long for the less responsible element among drivers to discover that their new MSVs could inflict great damage on an older car and go unscathed themselves. As a result some drivers would go looking for the older cars in secluded areas, bounce them off the road or into a bridge abutment, and then speed off undamaged, relieved of whatever frustrations cause this kind of behavior. Police seldom patrolled these out-of-the-way places, their attentions being required more urgently elsewhere, and so it became a great sport for some drivers.”
Buzz, eager to enjoy his clear sky, became such a target. And then, as in the Rush song, a second one joined in the chase …
1973, 1981 or even today, some of us just want to enjoy the sun, the drive and the machine. Let us get home in one piece.
Comments
Even in my not-as-small Fit, or really any other car, I’ve found driving to be less stressful when I assume every other driver is going to do the wrong thing.
That way, when most actually do the right thing, it improves my mood.
And if my hypothesis is correct, and the other driver does the wrong thing? I’m much better prepared to respond.
When I got my motorcycle many years ago the salesman told me to never assume that other motorists see you. To this day I follow that advice no matter what I’m driving.
I became keenly aware of this when I used to ride motorcycles on the street, and was reintroduced to it when I dailied my Fiat 124 Spider Abarth a few years ago.
In particular, there was a an eye-popping moment on the Washington Beltway that comprised part of my commute, which was often stop-and-go. On a damp spring afternoon ride home with the top down, I rolled up from 60 mph in the left lane to stopped traffic and glanced in my mirror.
To see a huge yellow construction dump truck behind me approaching at full speed, the driver slewing back and forth trying to stop – and I knew he wasn’t going to. Leaving aside the question of what a full dump truck is doing in the left lane for a moment, I had another moment – “Well, maybe this is how I die.”
Fortunately, there was enough room on the median to my left for him to wheel it over, 2 tires on the pavement, 2 on the wet grass, and slew past me and the other cars in the traffic jam – a hundred yards back and forth until he gathered it up, and merged slowly back onto the lanes, managing to do so before hitting the overpass abutment that was in front of us.
I got 100% lucky that day that the guy driving that truck managed to save it without killing myself and others, and possibly himself.
And I got a good cold water bucket reminder of how exposed and vulnerable those of us driving smaller sports cars and motorcycles (and pedestrians and other smaller vehicles) are to the larger heavier vehicles on our highways these days.
Stay alert and don’t assume, my friends.
– Bill C
Definitely stay alert.
Also related to this: If I have something in Orlando one evening, I’ll try to head into town before rush hour.
I remember taking my Motorcycle Safety course years ago, guess it would be about 21 years ago. The instructor taught us always ride like the everyone is actively trying to kill you. When you’re next to a vehicle or semi, you’re in the “death zone.”
I’ve always driven like that since.
JimS said:
When I got my motorcycle many years ago the salesman told me to never assume that other motorists see you. To this day I follow that advice no matter what I’m driving.
This………………
I expected some two-wheeled content, but yeah, a person shouldn’t take anything for granted regardless the number of wheels.
A slightly different take: I felt much safer in my Miata than in my massive 1963 Imperial Le Baron.
The Miata had crisp handling, aftermarket suspension, 200tw tires, modern brakes, etc., that all aided in avoiding the bad decisions of others.
That Imperial had none of that. Even the lap belts were a dealer installed accessory. Other drivers didn’t give a crap about cutting off a 5,000lbs., 19ft long car with 1960’s brakes, suspension, chassis, etc., and instantly hitting their brakes as they forced their way into the space between the tail of the vehicle in front of me and the nose of the old Imperial.
The behavior of others made me almost hate driving my classic in anything more than a Sunday morning at sunrise. I finally sold that old car after being in the family since new for 61 years.
Be aware and safe out there no matter what you’re driving or riding. Even bicyclists have stories of murderous behavior to share.
In reply to BillCuttitta :
Getting rear-ended like that is up there on my list of fears–it doesn’t matter if you are the safest driver on the road, it won’t stop you from getting into a wreck. I’m glad no one was hurt, especially you.
On a somewhat-related note, I was caught in some traffic going to pick up my kid because of RV on fire that closed all eastbound lanes on I-4, and there was a motorcyclist arguing (in stopped traffic, mind you) with the driver of a semi-truck.
I didn’t see the transgression that started the argument, but a truck driver is the last sort of person I’d want to get angry at me, especially if I’m on a motorcycle.
In reply to z31maniac :
I did MSF school years ago–back when I had my CBR600–and, you know, those lessons translate to four wheels nicely.
And, yes, next to a semi is the death zone. I make my passes clean and concise. No dawdling.
The latest thing I’ve been seeing here is “drivers” using the left turn lane to pass cars at a traffic light… sometimes even blowing through the red light.
Oh, and there was the time I was sitting at an intersection and this guy comes from the left and does two or three laps IN the intersection and then departed the opposite direction.
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