One thing I dislike about daylight savings time is having to drive home from work in the dark.  Reason being:  I can’t see.  I can’t count the number of times I have driven on the curb thinking it was a driveway or completely missing my turn altogether because I could not find the driveway.¹

If I have to drive at night, with people in the car, in between conversation I work in the occasional “I can’t see” or “I hope nobody steps out in front of the car” or “It sure is dark”, just so they know my last words.

I’m a great driver but sometimes I have to rely on my hearing to guide my way, or listen out for screams when I’m temporarily unable to see.  This got me to thinking would I rather be blind or deaf.  If I had to lose one of these two senses, which one could I live without?  As much as I LOVE music, I would have to give up my hearing because I could still be independent and deaf.

Several years ago, I took a course in ASL (American Sign Language) I never completed, but I’m still a quick finger speller and would have no problem communicating as a deaf person.  If however, I lost my sight….well I get lost with the lights on. I would not be able to cope as well.

Out of curiosity which one would you choose?  Would you rather be blind or deaf and why?

Additional Reading:
Cardiogirl.net – The Book of Questions

1. or exit

Warning or Coincidence?

Let’s just say I sat on the Turnpike for so long, that twice I thought I was being followed until I realized that car behind me couldn’t get off the freeway either. ¹

I have my own theories on the ‘whys’ of traffic:

1. Merging
2. Failure to anticipate²

When I drive on the highway/freeway and I’m approaching merging traffic, if I’m in the slow lane,³ I move over to the middle lane to keep traffic moving. If I have to brake, so might the cars behind me.

Merging traffic is like double dutch, I drive in a way that allows people to jump in without stopping the flow. Same thing on the street. If I let one car turn left or right, even though I have the right of way, 10 cars can move on both sides again instead of holding up traffic.

I only got a blurb of the book, but Mr. Vanderbilt, the author of Traffic, says that traffic jams are not caused by flaws in road design, but by flaws in human nature. Rubber necking is caused by gawkers (people who slow down to look at accidents, dumped furniture or to dig out their cell phone to take a picture – “digi-necking”).

He also mentions in his book that because driving doesn’t command 100% of our attention, we feel comfortable multi-tasking: talking on the phone, eating, taking pictures and reading. The results? Accidents and traffic.

Okay, I admit, when I was sitting in first gear, I whipped out my camera. Maybe I learned to steer the wheel using my knees and it’s possible when traffic finally started moving, I glanced around for an explanation,⁴ but found none.

Who’s to blame? Road design or drivers? Here’s a video of Tom on the Today Show Video. I think my blog is about to crash.

1. Traffic births paranoia.
2. or care
3. which I usually am
4. bodies, ambulance, old couch

My envy is showing. It’s dangling, it’s wagging, it’s out! How did the bobblehead get loose? A co-worker showed me a brochure of a car she plans to lease in a few months and after looking at the features cars come with nowadays, my mind started with the what-ifs and my car just seemed, well inadequate.

It’s not a bad looking car, now is it? It’s 14 years young, it has 102 hand-over-mouth mumbling miles, power windows (compliments of your arm rolling them down), it goes from 0 to 60 mph in about a minute and it comes with the 4/60 AC (you roll down all fours and go 60). It doesn’t give me any major problems, I do more maintenance than repairs and it can ride on E for two days or either the low fuel light is broken.

I will admit, it’s not the fastest car on the road, in fact, my back seat driver is always asking me to please just pass one car. She likes to look at the cars behind us, that will eventually pass us, and shake her head in shame. Once I heard applause coming from the back seat and I asked what happened. She said, you passed a car. (If you see a crying 8 year old on Rt. 22 in New Jersey, she’s probably mine, just feed her and send pictures).

Anywho, I didn’t start out with this particular car, but one that looks exactly like it, except it was an automatic and had power everything and was paid for. You know what happens to a car the minute the last payment is made, the engine falls out on the highway. I had planned on driving that car to the grave but it was hit while parked on the street. Totaled.

I was in town getting my hair done and in the midst of conversation we hear this bang and crash, so we ran outside to see what happened. Somebody, just coming from the dealer with his “new to me” car hit four parked cars, mine being one of them. Side note: This is why I like going to the ‘hood to get my hair done, people just don’t hit parked cars! They take them. They don’t leave you with nothing but memories of a car you used to have.

This man lost control of the car, I still don’t know what that means…you wanted to see if the car could drive itself so you let the wheel go and when you realized it couldn’t you tried to get control of it again? I had to watch my mangled car get towed away and ended up walking home. Several weeks later I found my current car, I was able to pay cash for it and was….

Doing okay because ignorance really is bliss, until someone bursts your bubble. Some of these cars have features that would make living in them seem like a better alternative. I don’t want to know that I have the option of warming up my butt with a push of a button. Now I’m looking at dirty new car brochures and I feel like I’m cheating. I’m starting to look at other cars and fantasize about polishing someone else’s exterior. I want to experience high performance rubber on slick conditions. I’m imagining what it would be like to shift someone else’s gears and pop someone else’s hood. I’m finding it very hard to uh, what’s the word I’m looking for…….focus!

I hate that I looked at that brochure, it’s going to take me weeks to get those images out of my head. When my co-worker gets her new car, I’m not riding in it or anyone’s car that is nicer than mine, which is most of them. I don’t love what you do for me Toyota.