_Noise_Conspiracy.jpg "The (International) Noise Conspiracy - 002-09-17: 9:30 Club, Washington D.C., USA")
Emergency Stop
July 26th, 2006 at 20:24
I was driving through town earlier on my way back home from the Co-Op. It was a lovely sunny day, so my windows were down, and I was in an excellent mood- so I thought I’d turn up the volume on the car stereo. Yeah, Rock for Sustainable Capitalism by punk/thrash trio Propagandhi is the perfect summer tune.
The secondary objective of this was too look damn cool by listening to rock music whilst driving a car. My mum’s Ford Ka, in fact. Cough.
I fully intended to stop at traffic lights, lean back in my seat, one arm on the wheel, the other perched out of the window. All I’d have needed were sunglasses and a left hand drive car, so I’d be next to the pavement and able to say things like “Yo!” and “Sup!” to pedestrians.
As I was turning up the volume on Propagandhi all the way to ‘13′, I looked up and saw a the rear end of a car hurtling towards me at some speed. Moments later I realised that I was the one doing the hurtling, and I was a collision course with the car in front.
I’d been training for this moment ever since my driving instructor first cried “Stop!”, and tapped their hand on the dashboard. I slammed my feet on to the break and clutch as fast I could, and with a mighty screech, the car began to slow down a bit. After I’d floored both of the pedals, for what felt like hours but was probably just a fraction of a second, the car continued rolling. I was powerless to do anything as I saw the car in front continue to approach me, albeit at a constantly decreasing rate.
At the last microsecond, just before I rolled into the back of the car in front, causing the world’s most gentle collision, my car came to a halt. After spending a few seconds worrying that I might have done something wrong (like nearly causing an accident), I looked out of my right hand window to see an old man. He was a very stereotypical old man- he had a walking stick, was wearing a shirt and you could only see his lips when he had his mouth open, as if old age had sucked his skin slightly more into his mouth.
I was mortified. Here I was, the youth of today, driving apparently wrecklessly, listening to loud popular music. I’d just reconfirmed what the Daily Express has been telling him about the state of Blair’s Britain, and I was no better than a kid with an ASBO, or a chav with a car modified to have (illegal) blue lights, 50 wheels and a batmobile fin. I consider old people to essentially be the zeitgueist when it comes to judging young people, and I didn’t want this guy to think that he’d died in some war to let me drive dangerously whilst listening into unpatriotic music.
In a bid to patch things up, I looked at him, and he looked at me- he understandably looked a little surprise having just witnessed quite an exciting people of motoring. I raised my arm in what would have been a wave if I’d rotated my hand a bit and shouted “Sorry!” in a half hearted way. The fact that I’d not nearly crashed into him seemed irrelevant.
Thankfully, he raised his hand and walking stick and did what could best be described as an “old people smile”.
“Phew!”, I thought, “The reputation of young motorists everywhere, saved“.
Post to: [ del.icio.us ][ Digg it ][ Furl ][ Netscape ][ Newsvine ][ reddit ][ StumbleUpon ][ Yahoo MyWeb ]Categories: Driving, Uncategorized |