I know transmission problems. I know transmission problems, and brake problems, and shifting problems and heating problems, and water pump problems. And, while I may not be the expert at actually fixing the source of concern, there is no doubt in my mind that, having experienced shifting problems, heating problems, smoking problems, and braking problems, I am a better driver than someone who has not.
The base of the matter is that I know how to listen to my car when it’s telling me something – whether that something might be ‘hey, Roo, let’s talk about re-attaching the handles to roll up those windows, just when you get the chance,’ or ‘Ruby, either you have a leak in your water pump and that’s steam from your hot engine, or your car is on fire as you idle in traffic with no escape.’ The spectrum is wide. We have several old cars.
I’m not saying don’t get a new car, but there’s a certain loss of communication between driver and machine when the machine works efficiently without its driver. My cars require a little more coaxing, a little more attention to each shift, (did that gear change sound worse than last night,) each brake, (how far was my stopping distance at the last light,) and the general overall health of these suddenly old vehicles. I say suddenly old, because my current ride just missed the wave of new technology and safety innovation, leaving me with a cassette player and a whole slew of transmission problems. It is not my first car with either of those things.
The truth of it is, we don’t work on new cars today, and with the dazzling wave of new tech that graces our engine compartments and dashboards, very often we cannot speak the language of our cars. We don’t need to either – the brakes work, the transmission shifts, the shifter sits properly, onward and upward. But because of that you don’t need to focus as much when you drive. You don’t need to keep an eye on your tach or your temperature gauge, you don’t pay special attention to each clunk, clang, and lack there of which emanates from your hood. You don’t know how to react in a panic situation.
It turned out to the be the water pump, when billows of steam started pouring out of our Jeep’s hood in the middle of rush hour traffic. We got the Volvo towed home from a camping trip when the brakes locked up and started overheating, to the point where the tires might have burst. Each time my van makes it up an incline, I beg that it will do so outside of first gear. (And even then, I simply beg it will do so.) The point is, you learn not to panic. You learn that at a green light, sometimes your car simply won’t get out of first. You learn that not being able to accelerate your station wagon up a hill requires a more conscientious form of driving, but that worrying about the drivers behind you doesn’t solve anything. You don’t panic. You keep cool. You figure out how to work around the situation.
A week into having my driver’s license I was at a friend’s party and parked on a fairly steep hill in the old Volvo station wagon. As I went to leave, all piss and vinegar about being able to finally drive on my own and impress my friends, I realized I couldn’t. The car refused to move forward, and began rolling slowly backwards down the hill. The brakes worked, I realized, as I stomped on them in horror. After a few tries and a panicked call to my dad, we found that the hill had made moot the small amount of tranny fluid left in the car. A simple solution, but from my first week of driving I was exposed to one of just a thousand driving situations that require the driver to act with speed, efficiency and calm. There have been many since, and there will be many more.
I love new cars, and driving them is always a treat. But I owe my skill as a driver, and my ability to react and think quickly and, I feel, calmly, to the fact that my older, cherished cars cannot be trusted quite so much to do their jobs. And where they fail, it’s up to me to act – whether that’s pulling them off to the shoulder or keeping them on the road. Each time I have to respond to a water pump breakage, a skipped gear, or a lazy brake, is a lesson in really learning how to drive. 
Imaged Selected from Wikipedia Commons
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