U-Haul Arse

 No, that isn't short testing ese for, "You move quickly," but rather my evaluation of the rental truck driver I witnessed yesterday.  At the north end of downtown Amherst, there is a rotary, or it may be a roundabout, but nobody has ever satisfactorily explained the difference after I apparently misused the first term.  Anyway, there is one of those circular intersection things at the north end of Amherst center, and I was just about to enter it when a U-Haul box van attempted to pass right where the lane constricts and the driver of such a large vehicle needs to slow to less than the speed that a bicycle can maneuver such an intersection.  Now, you might think that wasn't such a well considered decision by the driver, and well, you'd be correct.  "Fortunately", in doing so, the driver placed the van's hood and front fender well within reach of my hand for a combination of bracing myself and signaling displeasure with a repetition of slaps on the sheet metal.

The vehicle slowed, as it was doing anyway for the roundy thing, and I resumed my position in front of it and behind the PVTA bus, placing myself to discourage further attempts to pass illegally in the intersection.  It worked.  I survived and the driver seemed to behave as though I was another road user with a right to be there, but as I continued up the road to the UMass campus, I thought, wow, I guess I still react that way, but I wondered if that was really the best course of action, physically engaging with a car with my hand.  Simply, I don't know.

By this point, I was nearing the limits of campus, and it seems the rental truck had followed the same route as the bus and I, so with substantially more room to safely complete the move, it passed maybe 100 yards before the traffic light at the entry to campus, where the bus was now stopped.  Big white thing, hard to miss, stopped.  Apparently too, too hard to miss as the U-Haul drove right into the back of it.  Boom!  Enough speed to bruise some metal, but not seemingly enough to hurt anyone in either vehicle, so I just offered some verbal commentary on the rental driver's lack of skill as I rolled past and continued on my way.

Much has been written, said, and pondered regarding people getting their just returns, but it was interesting to witness some sort of karma work with such immediacy.  I supposed poor drivers will suffer sooner or later, but just to be sure there was no discrepancy, I called the Amherst police fifteen minutes later and offered myself as a witness of what should be a fairly clear cut at-fault and volunteered that I'd had an issue with the same driver just moments before the impact with the bus.  So far, my testament has not been requested.

As some know, many years before I'd first departed from car ownership, and still a few years before I'd hung up my bike racing hat, or helmet, I'd also briefly worn the hat of a driving instructor.  I was recruited at my mother's Christmas party by the wife of the West Hartford AAA employee who'd been placed in charge of getting their driving school division to run better.  He was the type of guy who knew how to get things right, and for Jim, that meant he didn't just run the school, but trained as a driving instructor for both the classroom and on the road, and his wife wanted to see more of him, like she did before the driving school assignment.  I was intrigued, and it ended up being a great, possible exceptional, driving school to call my employer.  With one exception aside from me, the instructors were all retired police officers and a fireman, people who had lots of first hand experience with auto accidents and knew the value of safe driving.  

The one other exception?  He didn't last through my time there, so the school was again trying to hire, and I was amused when I saw the office employment posting that included the question, "Do you have at least twenty years driving experience?"  Amusing because I had maybe half that, but I was the instructor who would be placed with students that had been too much struggle for another instructor, so I asked Jim about that detail, and he let me know that yes, when he'd first suggested hiring me, the rest of school was resistant to my mid twenties age, but with his wife's evaluation to back him, he'd told them to at least meet me and decide from there.  Guess I passed, and as far as I know, all my students passed their driving test.

Unfortunately, that isn't a particularly high bar.  State licensing bodies have bought into the fallacy that a car is THE way to get around, and while they will give lip service to a driver's license being a privilege, not a right, they don't make it very hard for people to do the most dangerous task most will ever perform.  Remember, thirty to forty THOUSAND people die every year in this country in auto accidents, so you'd think there's incentive to make sure licensed drivers are competent.  And yes, going back to that "twenty years driving experience" requirement, experience can build skill, and yet, any kid who just barely passes his third attempt at a driving test can then legally drive a 26,000 pound truck, something outweighing a typical compact car ten to one, say for example a big arse U-Haul.  Let's ask our law makers to make an effort to figure out a better way to graduate the licensing of drivers.  Who know's maybe we could get down to 29,000 deaths in a year!