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There's nothing like a road trip to really get your blood pumping. Sometimes it's just a couple of hours to take a look at a car but the best trips are the ones that run over a thousand miles in a day or so. Maybe it's just a family thing since we lived in southern California and drove to the Midwest every year for the holidays. We were always in a hurry and there was never enough money for a motel so my folks just took turns driving until we got there. That was back before the Interstate Highway System was in place (yes children, we had cars back then) and those rides were real adventures. A lot has changed since those early days; some good changes some not so good. My most recent road trip was a run down to Washington DC and back to pick up a new (new to me) dog. Years ago I would have just driven down, grabbed the dog and driven back. Between a brother and sister that wanted to get together for dinner and a spouse that thought it was too much driving for one day, a one day road trip became a two day affair. That must be what it's like when your kids will come knocking on your door looking for your car keys and drivers license. They'll give you all the reasons why it's time to stop driving and you'll have to agree that the reasons are valid but it won't make it any easier to give up your independence. My mother will be ninety in March and she's still puttering around town in her mini-van. I've ridden with her and she actually does a pretty decent job. At least she pays attention to her driving, that's more that I can say for some of the drivers I saw on the New Jersey Turnpike. I hear that Paul Newman at seventy eight is still driving a race car although someone said he did two laps with the turn signal on. I should be so lucky. The run down was pretty dramatic as Boston was sixty degrees and rain when I left. Hartford was forty degrees and spitting snow, and New York was thirty three and hail. The storm had left DC by the time I arrived leaving only twenty degree temperatures and dry pavement. I needed a ride that would be comfortable for a 120 lb dog, which narrowed down the fleet to the only station wagon in the garage, Leighs' BMW. This time of year it sits on Blizzacks on 16" rims, a tire choice that isn't the best for an Interstate run. So the night before I went down to the garage and put on the Kumho's that were on 17" alloys. As those big wide tires were throwing spray across the Tappen Zee Bridge I felt like I had made the wrong choice. Now I know how those pit crews feel when they send their drivers out on race tires and it starts to rain, heavily. You just know that it can't keep coming down forever. The main problem with rain or snow is not traction, modern day electronics will take care of that, it is visibility. Trucks and SUV's throw up so much spray that you really can't see more that a couple of cars ahead. That's a problem if you're trying to pick your spots four or five cars ahead. If your intent on driving through the traffic as I do, sort of like a rolling autocross, visibility is very important. One of the thing that becomes quickly apparent in bad weather is that windshield wipers have not seen as much improvement as the cars over the years. I've never really liked them anyway and ever since my son showed me the benefits of Rainx, I've pretty much ignored them. I'm amazed at the number of drivers that have their wipers running at full tilt for hours at a time. I would always be afraid that after beating themselves to death for an hour or so they would just fly off into the air. Besides is the windshield really that much easier to see out of when the wiper is in your face five times a second verses once a second. What blocks your vision more, the spray or the wiper blade itself? The early Porsches only had one wiper speed so there was no decision to be made. On the family buggy that was used for those long rides to Missouri, the wipers were run by a strange vacuum system. The problem with that was apparent when my father jumped on the gas to pass a car on those old two lane roads. Full throttle, no vacuum and the wipers stopped. They didn't slow down, they stopped. The minute the gas pedal was lifted they were running full tilt. So you basically had them when they weren't needed and didn't have them when they were needed. Sounds like the New Jersey State Police. Certainly electric motors have been an improvement in clearing windshields but you would think that we would have made more progress than that in the last fifty years. The weather did keep speeds down to a reasonable level on the ride south but the return trip was another story. A bright clear sunny Saturday morning turned all the demons loose on Rt 95. I consider myself a pretty fast driver but was in the back of the pack with the folks on the JFK Highway heading for the Delaware Memorial Bridge. At a steady 85 mph I was definitely in the way, and that was in the right lane. Packs of cars maybe five or six at a time would come up, pass, and disappear into the distance in what seemed like minutes. And remember I was doing 85! What was even more amazing was the cars that made up those roving packs. I would've expected BMW's and Mercedes, the kind you would see on the autobahn running at 100 mph and steady as a rock. Instead they were 4X4 pickups, Honda Accords, Chevy Blazers, and an occasional Hyundai Sonata. And about half those drivers were on the phone, at 90 mph. I had the passport out but it was unemployed the whole trip. Where are those guys anyway? When we were young they were behind every bush, now they're nowhere to be found. I did see a couple of accidents on the Garden State Parkway. Fortunately they were on the other side and we only slowed to about 65 mph. At the kind of speeds on today’s highways any accident looks like a plane crash, you know that it used to be a car but it can't be readily identified. Just bits and pieces scattered all down the road. Years ago with rare exception, crashes smashed fronts and rears pretty good but seemed to leave the cars in one piece. I guess that's the difference between crashing at 50 mph and crashing 90 mph. One big improvement to our nation’s toll roads has been the new EZ Pass method of paying the tolls without stopping. I got one last year and submitted all our plates so that I could use it in any car. I don't normally travel on the Mass Pike but after going out to Lime Rock last spring with a friend that had one I could see the benefits, no waiting. Here in Mass drivers are supposed to slow to 15 mph while passing the sensors but I guess they have faster sensors in New Jersey because you can drive through their "Express Fast Lane" at full song, and they do. They not only don't lift, I think they actually go through faster. I'm talking triple digit speeds made easy because the lanes are about four cars wide and tough to miss. Just don't get in the way like I did at the Patterson toll. All the horn blowing woke up the dog. I thought I was in Mass and had slowed to a reasonable speed. Big mistake. Home safe and in record time, the new dog is enjoying the back yard with a new friend and I'm glad just to be off the highway. Road trips just aren't as fun as they used to be. Who would've thought it's because of the speeds. Glad I wasn't driving four speeds and drum brakes, I might not have made it back at all. We'll wait 'till spring and keep them on the back roads where it's still fun. KTF |
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