Parked Cars vs. Moving Violations

It’s no secret that I love to drive. And if you know me at all, you know a bit about my driving history. If you don’t know or you need a refresher – here are some highlights. I have been pulled over more times than I can count. If I had to guess, I would have to say I am in the high 30s by now. I have been pulled over for everything from running stop signs and red lights to illegal turns. But mostly I have been pulled over for speeding and once for speeding in a construction zone. I have lost track of how many tickets I have received – I have fought all of them and some have even been dismissed completely. (I can offer you advice on how to get out of a ticket either on the scene or at court – I have done both successfully... more than once). I’ve been pulled over at all hours of the day and night, in different states, with and without friends and family in the car, with and without my license, even. At one point in time I had a total of 8 points on my record – all for various violations – my insurance was $480 A MONTH and the company threatened to drop me. I have been in 2 major accidents within a year where I totaled my car each time (one was not my fault, the other one was). When I got my new car the second time, I was pulled over 2 hours later for going 15 over. But ask anyone – especially Amanda – and they will tell you that I am actually a very good driver. Ask my friend Celia (who was in the car for one of those accidents) and she will tell you I should not sing in the car. And if I am coming across as proud of my driving mishaps, it’s because I am.

I have a love have relationship with driving – I love to drive and the roads hate me. Or at least the cops do. But not being able to drive was probably one of the hardest things I had to endure during my recovery. Driving, to me, is like freedom. So to taking that away was like taking away my freedom. Patrick Henry said, “Give me liberty or give me death.” And I say, “Give me the car keys or I’m not going.”

I love driving so much I even like to drive when I am the passenger – which of course drives everyone crazy (pun intended). Every time I got in the car with someone – my mom, my sister, whomever – I got nervous. They are going too slow or too fast, they are not stopping soon enough, they are breaking too hard, they are waiting too long to merge or merging too soon, they can turn on red but they aren’t. I was even starting to annoy myself.

About 5 weeks after surgery Amanda was kind enough to drive me to a house warming party about 30 miles from here – so a nice long drive on the expressway. Now, Amanda has confessed to me more than once that I make her a nervous driver, probably because of all of my comments and criticisms. So there we were on the expressway and there I was critiquing her about something and there she was snapping at me.

I am pretty sure she something along the lines of “How many tickets have I gotten? And how many have you gotten?” Touche. She had me there. Amanda had never gotten a ticket, pretty sure she had never been pulled over. And she was doing me a favor by chauffeuring my ass all around town. And there I was freaking out about not stopping soon enough or a car trying to cut her off or something stupid and trivial like that.

So I made a promise to myself. I would not say another word about her driving – and I haven’t. Amanda is a really good driver. And while she has never received a moving violation, she does have a penchant for hitting parked cars in parking lots. So while I vowed to not say another word about her driving habits on the road, parking lots were still open game for comments and criticisms.