By Mack Williams
For the Salisbury Post
The other day, I was driving back toward Danville on U.S. 86 after taking care of some business in Yanceyville.
My first memories of being in a car are “passenger” memories, when I was a child, with my father at the wheel. He knew when he could take liberties with the speed limit and when he couldn’t, never displaying the sort of impatience which could endanger himself or others.
One of his driving traits, which didn’t really have anything to do with driving, was a bit of percussion which he performed on the car’s steering wheel. This was sometimes to the beat of the music being played on one of the local Salisbury AM radio stations. There were cracks in the plastic of his steering wheel and he would make “clicking “ sounds with his thumbnails in those cracks. Instead of being played like a drum or piano, those summer-induced hot-car cracks were sort of plucked like a harp.
I don’t seem to recall much in the way of bad behavior on the part of my father or other drivers back then. A driver’s personal space seemed to extend for a good distance in sort of a “halo” around his car, which didn’t seem to be very often intruded upon by horn honking, light flashing or bumper riding.
Of course, one reason for my not noticing other drivers’ bad behaviors as a very young child was that the level of my vision had not yet reached over the car’s dashboard.
When driving, one often sees a lot of rudeness displayed on the road. The particular behavior which bothers me the most is when a driver immediately behind me at a stoplight starts honking his horn, wanting me to take that “right turn on red”even if there is an obstruction to my vision on the left.
Another troublesome individual is the driver who comes up behind me, usually too close, and flashes his lights. If he wants to become a first responder or EMT, he should do so, and thereby add legitimacy to his light flashing.
One day, as I was walking on a sidewalk, I saw a driver become overly impatient with the slow-moving car in front of him, gunning his engine angrily and passing the other car with great speed, spewing his foul-smelling exhaust into the air.
After this brief litany of some of the bad behavior which I have observed on the highway, let me recount an example of the best, seen by me that day just outside of Yanceyville.
As I headed north, around the curve ahead and facing me in the opposite lane, came a Caswell County deputy’s car, moving slowly, with lights flashing, leading a funeral procession. I hit my right turn signal and pulled off onto the shoulder, waiting for the procession to pass.
After the mourners and the subject of their mourning had gone by, I glanced into my rear-view mirror, as one normally would before pulling back onto the highway.
Lined up on that grass-covered shoulder was an assemblage of all makes and models of vehicles, some old and some fresh from the factory, extending as far behind me as I could see. It was enough to almost justify the North Carolina Highway Department’s paving of an additional lane for their accommodation.