Driving to Distraction, on Both the Golf Course and the Interstate

Last week was spring break, and I took my son Michael to Miami on an educational vacation. I told him I’d do my part to fight communism by chaining myself to Elian Gonzalez’s knockout cousin, the one who looks like Jennifer Lopez. I’m kidding. Truthfully, the only educational activities I had planned involved proper backswing technique.

It was a father-son bonding experience. Every day, we played golf. Every evening, we ate fast food, the greasier, the better. Then, in the middle of every night, I bonded with the toilet. But I digress.

Anyway, one evening we were heading north on I-95 in our rental car, a Dodge Intrepid. There were five lanes of traffic, and every one was packed to the gills with cars, trucks and SUVs driving a minimum of 300 miles an hour. Outside of the rush when they opened the omelet line at the Krefsky bat mitzvah, I’ve never seen people move so fast.

Suddenly, the car in front of me abruptly stopped. I slammed on my brakes to avoid it. But a Toyota Corolla smashed into our car, hurtling us forward.

In the split second after the impact, I looked into my mirror and saw an SUV smashing the Corolla that had just hit us. That forced the Corolla into my car again.

“Are you OK?” I asked Michael.

He said he was shaken but fine.

“We’re very, very lucky,” I told him.

“To be alive,” he said.

“Oh, sure, that--and that this happened after we got in 18 holes.”

Fortunately, nobody involved in the accident was hurt. The driver of the car that had stopped in front of me was talking on a cell phone. The young woman driver who hit me was frantically screaming into a cell phone. Her car had collapsed around her. It was now the size of a wedge of cheese. I could put it on a cracker. The front of the third car, the SUV, was scattered; all its hoses were schvitzing. The driver was on her cell phone. I made a mental note to go long on Nokia.

Traffic was still whizzing by at 300 miles an hour. Then, I did the stupidest thing of my life: I got out of my car!

Here are the ways I could have died:

1. I could have been plowed down by a passing car.

2. There could have been a chain-reaction pileup, and I could have had my head sheared off by fenders hurtling over the pile.

3. It’s Miami, so I could have been picked off by a passing sniper.

But as long as I was standing there, I checked out the damage to my rental: only one big dent on the rear bumper. Awright, Dodge! Let’s hear it for American steel!

In five minutes, the first police car arrived, blue light flashing. By then, the traffic had slowed enough for me to hear the curses of the drivers as they crept by.

A highway patrolman arrived to take statements. He had us move off the highway. Down the exit ramp I drove, turning right at the first street. I don’t want to say anything bad about the neighborhood, but I suspect it’s been quite a while since anybody looking like my son and I wandered in asking, “Pardon me, gentlemen, which way to the sixth tee?” I called my aunt in Fort Lauderdale to tell her what happened. She said, “At least you’ve got a state trooper with you in case of trouble.” I laughed and said, “He’d be outgunned 40-1 at the first driveway!”

We were there over two hours waiting for the paperwork. I called the rental car company to expedite exchanging cars. An agent said she needed to ask “a few questions.” She asked my name, my son’s name, how many times I had rented a car during the last 12 months, and what airline mileage plans I was affiliated with. Fifteen minutes later, when she asked, “Last grade of school completed?” I hung up on her before she got to a question about my circumcision. Hey, I just wanted a new car--I wasn’t applying for security clearance at the CIA.

When the patrolman let us go, we got on I-95 again, nervously, and drove successfully to the airport to change cars. I handed in the car, and the rental agent said she had to charge me for six gallons of gas at the posted refill price of $3.79 per gallon! Where did she get her customer-service training, OPEC?

“I was just in an accident,” I said. “I know I should return the car full, but please excuse me, I came straight here because I thought the car might explode.”

“You can take the car to the closest gas station and fill it yourself,” she said.

“Where’s the closest gas station?” I asked.

“Just get on I-95.”