The Southwest Voice

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The traffic school teacher showed a video in which various drivers described how their lives had been ruined in moments of carelessness. At the end of each segment, the drivers would say, “It happened to ME. It could happen to YOU.”

     The first guest was a child-faced man whose mutton chop haircut and bright blue blazer suggested rock star. The man spoke outdoors in a monotone. “On a morning much like this … I was driving drunk down this country road…. I crashed at approximately one hundred … miles per hour. Because of the force of the impact … I flew out of my windshield … and was run over by my own vehicle.” I thought he might be an actor until the camera panned down to his wheelchair. His listless legs were the size of arms and barely filled his pants. “It happened to me … It could happen to you.”

     The next segment was filmed at a train stop. A middle-aged woman in a wheelchair sat motionless as the Lincoln Memorial. When she spoke, she barely moved her eyes and lips. “On a January morning, my car was struck by a train. The last thing I remember was a dark wall coming at me and a deafening sound. The train snapped my spinal cord in two. I will be … paralyzed for the rest of my life.” In the pause, her eyes filled with bitterness and her voice wavered and firmed. “It happened to ME … It could happen TO YOU.”

     The third driver had made an ill-fated decision to reach for a cassette tape while driving at Big Sur. In the next instance, his car tumbled down a steep cliff before becoming a crushed aluminum can. “All it took was a split second and that was it.” He had escaped with no serious injuries and seemed indifferent. “It happened to me … It could happen to you.”

     Andy Warhol once said that everyone will have fifteen minutes of fame. These fifteen minutes are not likely to be spent on a stage, clutching an Oscar, but rather describing something stupid we’ve done.

     The video that affected me most was of an accident involving a student that had fallen asleep at the wheel. His truck ran into a street and killed six other students. Parents sat on a couch and stared at their knees while describing how energetic and giving their sons had been. A segment shows one of the victims water skiing in slow motion with his brother, the joy pouring through his open mouth.

     At the end of the class, I stood up to give my teacher my traffic school paperwork to fill out. He was shorter and frailer than I had imagined. The Wizard and his bible, the DMV Handbook, didn’t loom as largely.

     Yet, the videos had left me quiet. It’s the same reaction people have when they leave a sad movie.

     I left and drove the open streets, enjoying the freedom and wisdom that traffic school afforded me. At a stop sign I actually stopped.

     My new driving habit lasted about … fifteen minutes. It happened to me. It could happen to you.