Two Collisions in One Year: Where to Go from Here

I’ve had two traffic collisions in one year.

Both were my fault.

In one, at night, I didn’t see a driver in a parking lot, and as he passed I drove into him. (I’m not one-hundred percent that his lights were on, but it’s not as if I had to grope my way to my car in pitch blackness.) In the other, I was distracted on the freeway, didn’t see traffic stop in front of me, braked and switched lanes to avoid a collision, and lost control of my Jeep. I ended up having a collision anyway. The Jeep was totalled.

It’s true: I’m a bad driver.

This is no time for making excuses. The first step to solve a problem is to acknowledge it.

                   1. Degraded driving habits.

When I wonder how I became a bad driver, I think of the gradual degrading of my driving habits. Like, when I’m on my motorcycle, I don’t like to come to a complete stop at a stop sign. It’s a bother to stop, put my feet down, and then proceed. I’ve learned the habit of doing slow rolls through stop signs.

That might not be unsafe per se, but it’s less safe. And it gets the mind in the habit of approving lax driving habits.

Another bad habit: over the years, my freeway speed has crept up. I’ve often done 80 mph or faster.

This speed exalts my desire to shorten my drive time over safety. There’s nothing good about this habit. Not only is it less safe to drive faster rather than slower; it also creates a habit of mind to think of safety as less important than it is.

So the first step to recover my driving zen is to be scrupulous about traffic laws. Now, that doesn’t mean necessarily driving 65 on the freeway; but I’ve re-acquired the habit of keeping my speed down to 70. And I don’t roll through stop signs, even if there’s no other vehicle around.

2. Focusing the mind: positive safety habits.Both of my collisions happened because my mind wandered and I was not alert to traffic. I drive about 30,000 miles a year. It’s just not possible to have a laser-like focus on the road for every mile I drive. I can’t tell myself, "Don’t think of anything but driving" for every minute of all the hours that I’m on the road.

But if I can’t banish all non-driving thoughts, I can encourage thinking about driving. It’s not not-thinking about the elephant (impossible); it’s thinking about the antelope (possible).

In other words, instead of trying to not think of anything but driving, I should occupy my mind with driving-related ideas.

During my motorcycle training, I was taught to look a half-a-mile down the road, to anticipate problems far ahead so that I can deal with them on a non-emergency basis. And I was taught constantly to be aware of my traffic surroundings. These habits are especially important on a motorcycle. If you have a collision and you’re in your car, you’re likely to talk to a police officer. If you have a collision and you’re on your motorcycle, you might talk to an angel.

So all of my motorcycle riding (which I'll do a lot of until I replace my car) has a positive effect. It stirs in my mind a sense of danger and high stakes on the road. I expect that alertness to the road to continue when I’m back in a car. If it doesn’t happen automatically, I’ll be conscious about replicating my motorcycle habits-of-the-mind when I drive my car. I can mimic in my car the same thoughts that keep me safe on my motorcylce.

The other habit that I can instill into my driving mind is constantly to critique my driving. (So: "When that lady waved me to do my left turn in front of her, I didn’t look to the right before starting! Ugh!") This alerts me to my driving deficits. This makes it possible to change bad habits. This, again, occupies the mind with driving, making me a safer driver.

Finally, I have gone back to motorcylce-safety school to remember ideas to be safe. But I can go back further than that -- to the first grade. When I was little, we walked to school. Our parents and teachers drilled into our little mind a simple safety instruction: when you cross a street, "Stop, look, and listen".

What I learned in the first grade for crossing streets is a good lesson when I'm fifty-five and going through stop signs.

While I drive, I can’t keep from thinking about my cases, or about my friends and family, or about my business, or about literature and writing. But I can dictate to my mind to often and routinely reach out to the road.

3. Focusing the mind: training the mind on the importance of safety.There are things I can do when I’m not driving to make me a better driver.

It’s possible to alert your mind to the importance of certain things. If you practice remembering names of people you meet, eventually it becomes easier to remember names. If you write down your dreams immediately when you wake, it becomes easier to remember your dreams. By doing these things, you tell the mind that remembering names or remembering dreams are important, and the mind improves at those skills.

So the plan is to undertake activities that alert my mind that safe driving is important, so that when I’m on the road, my mind focuses on safety.

One idea is to get the habit of reading about safe driving. This habit is more often undertaken by motorcycle riders than car drivers. That’s probably because the stakes are higher on the road for a motorcycle rider.

There are books about motorcycle safety, and motorcycle magazines often have columns that discuss safe riding. I have books; I should re-read them. And I should join, say, the Honda Riding Club for the sake of its magazine. I don’t now know of similar resources for car drivers.

Another idea is to solicit ideas about safety from friends. Some of my friends drive long distances and have good driving records. They could be resources.

These practices would instill in the mind the importance of safety. Of course, these practices have another positive purpose: I might actually learn something that improves my driving.

                       4. Focusing the mind: future study.

 Finally, this essay is only a start. As time goes by, I’ll revisit it. I’ll likely revise it as new strategies for assuring safe driving present themselves.


5. Conclusion.I hope these ideas make me a better driver. I see improvement already, and I expect that to continue.

List

A person who is becoming dear to me invited me to read her list of 25 things about herself, and to write a list about myself. Here is that list.

1. This I know: if you think that someone has stolen from you, you’re probably wrong; if you think someone meant to put you down without seeming to, you’re probably right; you don’t know a fraction of the times someone has lied to you.

2. This I know: if you can’t get what you want, figure out what you can get.

3. This I know: it’s harder for young people to bear disappointment, because they have less experience with it. Experience can make older people strong.

4. I want life to be easy, but I’m willing for life to be hard.

5. This I know: If Satan took random people up, and he showed them all the Kingdoms of the Earth, and said he would give it all to them, but they had to bow down and worship him, a lot of people would at least think about it. That's a serious understatement.

6. I believe that I regret every unkindness I have done.

7. Sometimes I think of the perfect putdown after a conversation; a little later I’m usually glad that I didn’t think of it until after the conversation ended.

8. Swimming makes me happy.

9. Seeing open space in nature makes me feel young.

10. This I know: time spent looking at clouds in a clear sky is time well spent.

11. I enjoy scuba diving, like those moments when you’re suspended above a rich, colorful bottom; you’re surrounded by fearless fish; and above you, the sun refracts across the water and looks like a brilliant Milky Way stretched across the sky.

12. This I know: travel makes for excellent memories.

13. I make my living because people aren’t truthful. If all people were truthful, I would have to become a potato farmer. I say that with all respect to potato farmers.

14. I enjoy arguing in court. After so many years, sometimes I do it well. It’s rewarding to leave a hearing and think that you’ve said everything you needed to say.

15. This I know: in every jury trial, something happens that you completely did not expect. When it happens, you just have to deal with it. You’re better off if you know it’s coming.

16. This I know: you should never boast about being truthful, because you’ll soon find yourself telling a lie.

17. This I know: kindness is an irreplaceable virtue in yourself and in your partner.

18. This I know: cruel people make people cruel.

19. I enjoy language more and more as I grow older. I read the classics to enjoy the writing in books that have stood the test of time. I’m a sucker for a book if I read that the author writes good sentences. It is a pleasure to enjoy language, and it’s a worthy pleasure.

20. When I stopped wasting time on television, I started wasting time on the internet.

21. This I know: courage is an irreplaceable virtue.

22. I’m a little bit in love with everything I write.

23. When I was young, I was too picky to get married; now that I’m older, I’m afraid that the women are too picky for me to get married.

24. This I believe: improving your ability to speak and write improves your ability to think.

25. I value new experiences, so that the days don’t jet by one after another, indistinct.

Tribes

If we practiced more charity toward each other, we as a nation would be stronger. I mean "charity" in the sense of forbearance from judging others.


1. Trouble in town.Because we don’t forbear from judging others; we aren’t charitable toward each other. Instead, we've become tribal. There’s a "conservative" tribe. There’s a "liberal" tribe. And among tribes, it’s us-versus-them. We live in mutual hostility.

We’re like an unhappy couple that can’t divorce. And everything the other does is interpreted in the most dismal light.

So, we don’t have policy disagreements. Instead, our president is a "socialist". Or a "communist". Or a "Muslim". We learn from Glenn Beck that he "has a deep-seated hatred of White people." The left’s bogeymen of the right, like the Koch brothers, are seen as evil incarnate, persons bent on tearing down government so that there is no rival to the power of the rich. It’s not policy, it’s personal.

When policy is discussed, it’s discussed un-charitably. Leaders who know better speak of "death panels" in the Affordable Care Act ("ObamaCare" to its detractors). There were no "death panels". They were invented to make Democrats who sought to save lives look like villains who sought to end lives.

Then the world turned. Recently, Republicans proposed Medicare reform. Good or bad, their proposal should have been debated. But, stung, Democrats gladly sawed the branch off behind the Republicans. Republicans fell to earth, to the glee of the Democrats.

Now nobody dares make risky proposals in response to an in-rushing crises. Politically, we're more paralyzed for that.

Hatred percolates and boils over. I’ve read internet discussion-threads between liberals and conservatives that are vicious slanders of each other’s motives, honor, and intelligence. If these conversations had taken place in person, the parties would have to be physically separated.

We aren’t "Americans" any more. We’re tribes of a fractured polis.

Media companies manipulate our weakness in charity. There must be a tribal element to our brains that glories in this us-versus-them mentality, that make these tribal appeals so successful. These media companies bind their followers by engaging the worse, tribal angels of our natures.

There is little reaching across. Action heroes aren’t like Atticus Finch. They don’t persuade. They vanquish. Politically, we don’t want to be Atticus Finches; we want to be action heroes. Political rights are at risk; what is wanted is not a fair election, but elections in which our side wins, by any means necessary. Even by voter intimidation. Even by dis-enfranchisement. Un-charity body-checks democracy.

We aren’t "Americans" any more. We cooperate less; we play political king-of-the-hill more.

Un-charity colors debate. We don’t see the long-term unemployed as victims of hard economic times. They’re freeloaders who would rather do nothing than work. So tax breaks for the wealthy who don’t need more money are preferred to the extension of unemployment benefits to people who do. On the other side of things, people are labeled "war-mongers" for supporting military action.


2. Charity is not naive.For all this, we don’t see ourselves as un-charitable. We see ourselves as pragmatic, realistic. We say to ourselves that it is naive to see somebody or some group as good, if they are evil. And we are convinced of their evil.

But charity doesn’t call us to see our adversaries as good. It calls us to see them as complex. They are not action-adventure movie villains who are evil and only evil. They are flesh-and-blood human beings, like us, good and bad, who, like us, maybe never did anything in their lives with a pure motive; and that would include doing nothing with a purely bad motive.

If we see our fellow human beings as complex, we don’t have to worry about being naive. Seeing complexity in others is the opposite of naivete.


3. What keeps us from charity.Mind-forged manacles bind us away from charity.

One manacle is pride. Charity requires humility. Pride scorns and judges. Charity compels us to think that we don’t have all the answers; that we aren’t always right; that we might be wrong; that somebody we disagree with might have a point. Pride places us, in our minds, above our adversaries. It draws us away from charity.

Another manacle is love of certainty. While we practice un-charity, the world is simple and clear. We and our tribe are good; they and their tribe are bad. We sleep with a peaceful conscience, even if it is peaceful because it’s un-examined. To practice charity is to leave behind comforting certainties. That takes courage.

Another manacle is habit. We have a habit of judging. Charity comes when we have a new habit of humility; a new habit of suspending judgment; a new habit of seeing complexity.

                   4. Speaking of myself.

I judge a lot. I spent some of yesterday practicing not judging, practicing thinking better of people than is my habit, practicing seeing people as three-dimensional instead of as cartoons. I was happier for it. I was better for it.

When I practice charity, I don’t ignore that there is error in the world, and evil. Not all answers are equal, nor all solutions to the problems we face. But charity requires me not to choose condemnation of my adversaries as my first response to controversy.


5. Conclusion.We can become a nation again. We can become less tribal and more American.

Sleepless

This is the story about why I use medical marijuana.

1. The former solution: a narcotic sleep-aid.

My doctor used to prescribe a narcotic sleep-aid. He warned me that it was slightly addictive. That concerned me, but it was a (slight) risk that I was willing to take. Because otherwise I would wake up at about 2:30 in the morning and lie awake until I gave up on slipping back into sleep. Then I would open a book or surf the internet until I became tired enough to close my eyes a couple of hours or less before the alarm went off.

I tried alternatives to the narcotic. I invented strategies. For example, I learned to read books before sleeping instead of watching television. Books put me to sleep; television made me awake. And if I woke in the early morning, sometimes I could coax myself back to sleep by recalling what I had read; television lacked that power. But books didn’t always work.

I had a lifestyle that should have favored uninterrupted sleep. I exercised regularly. An exercise regimen is well known to favor rest. Maybe it helped. Just not enough.

I went months without the narcotic. But work projects would become oppressive in size and in too-soon deadlines. And then, when I most needed a good night’s rest, I wouldn’t get it. Then it was back to the doctor, with a few more sleep-deprived nights while I waited for the appointment.

2. The problem with the narcotic.

And the narcotic was no perfect solution. When I took it, I would feel leaden in the morning. If I closed my eyes after the alarm sounded, I wouldn’t open them again for at least 45 minutes. And if I had not predicted interrupted sleep, and then my sleep was interrupted that night, the narcotic would be useless. I couldn’t take it if I woke up in the early-morning hours, because I needed to take it at least eight hours before waking; otherwise, waking on time would be difficult. So the first sleep-deprived night always came without relief.

3. Medical-marijuana seems appealing.

A few months ago, I had a sleep-deprived night and called my doctor the next day. I left a message that asked for a phone renewal of my prescription. It seemed worth asking for an instant prescription for help right away.

A nurse returned the call and said that the doctor didn’t want to renew the prescription over the phone. The doctor had speculated that I might have sleep apnea, and he wanted to run some tests. In the meantime, the nurse recommended an over-the-counter sleep-aid and suggested that I make a medical appointment. I tried the over-the-counter sleep-aid. It worked for a couple of nights, then it didn’t. I never made the medical appointment, because I had something else in mind.

What I had in mind was medical marijuana. I had researched it and discovered that it was recommended for sleep problems. Feeling a little felonious, I called to make an appointment with a Saturday-only clinic that issued medical marijuana certificates.

4. Getting a medical-marijuana prescription.

When I called the clinic, the person on the phone asked whether I was under a doctor’s care. And she required me to bring to the Saturday appointment a copy of my sleep-prescription. This impressed me with the seriousness of the medical investigation that the doctor proposed to conduct before permitting me to access medical marijuana. I went by Kaiser and got a copy of my old prescription.

But when I got to the clinic, they seemed unaware that I had an appointment. I got in line behind the walk-ins, which was everybody but me. They were a healthy-looking bunch. (In fairness, so was I.) Nobody asked to see my prescription, even though I had it in my hand expecting someone to ask to see it. It was as if the telephone requirements were just for show, in case I was a law-enforcement officer doing a lazy telephone-trawl, looking for lax practices among medical-marijuana doctors.

The doctor called me in. I expected him to inquire about some of the contra-indications to medical marijuana on the form that I filled out. But he didn’t. He spent most of our time cautioning me about how not to run into trouble with the police with my medical marijuana. He recommended that I carry my medical marijuana in my car trunk, not on the front seat next to me, in case I was stopped by police for any reason.

5. Going to a medical-marijuana dispensary.

Then it was off to the medical marijuana dispensary. In the dispensary I went to, I encountered a big but pleasant man who guarded an inside door. He looked me over and asked me some questions. Learning that I was a first-timer, he gave me a form to fill out. Then he invited me to go inside.

Inside, the receptionist made a copy of my driver’s license and my medical-marijuana certificate. Then she called my prescriber’s office to ensure that I had not given her a forgery. After that, I was buzzed through a third door into the small, neat room where they sold the marijuana, the paraphernalia for smoking marijuana, and edible marijuana products.

I had researched medical marijuana, so I knew the difference between strains of marijuana. Sativa is the strain for people who enjoy a stimulating buzz. It’s the good-time stuff. Sativa and Sativa-mixes are most of what the dispensary had in their glass jars in their glass cases in their inside room. Indica is the strain that has the most medical benefits, including help with sleep. I bought the Indica. (Since then, sometimes I have also bought Sativa.)

6. Marijuana gets the job done.

The Indica works well. When I take it, I sleep soundly. And I need less sleep to wake refreshed. Usually, after smoking Indica, I wake up a little before the alarm goes off. And if I don’t smoke before I sleep, and I wake in the early-morning hours, I can smoke a small amount, and it puts me back to sleep. An early-morning smoke doesn’t keep me from waking on-time and refreshed.

I was worried that I might have the same problem with marijuana that I had with alcohol. When I drank, I would start when I got home from work, and I would continue drinking until I fell asleep. And one or another reason would induce me to get in my car and drive when I shouldn’t – for example, if I ran out of alcohol. If I had been sober, I would have known not to drive while intoxicated, but I wasn’t sober when I made that decision. That was a big reason why I quit. It’s easier for me not to drink than it is for me to drink and not to drive.

Marijuana isn’t like that. I rarely smoke before 9:00 p.m., and usually not until 10:00 or 11:00 p.m. or later. And a pipe-bowl or half of a pipe-bowl of marijuana costs next-to-nothing, especially compared to the fifth of scotch-or-gin-or-vodka-or-tequila that I used to drink each night after work. I never drive after smoking marijuana. Also, because I take only small amounts of marijuana, compared to the amounts of alcohol that I used to drink, it doesn’t endanger my health like the alcohol did.

7. Coming out.

My medical-marijuana use isn’t something that I’ve talked a lot about before now. My brother Peter knows, and my house-mates know. I myself felt slightly felonious when I first sought out a prescription, and I wonder if some people who read this will look past the prescription and past the need, and judge me a pot-head. What I do is legal, but some people consider it only "legal" – in quotation marks. But I am who I am.

And a good night’s sleep is priceless.