Life is for living…to be experienced at the absolute max, like a speeding bullet, at two thousand miles an hour. Exist, but exist right on the cusp, on the limit of human endeavour, before going out in a high octane-fuelled fireball at a billion degrees Fahrenheit. That’s what I used to think, and that’s exactly how I used to get from A to B, spending most of my youth driving about with as much finesse as a scuba diver at a salsa class. And there was good reason for that.
When I was a boy one of my favourite toys was that plastic Evel Knievel which you wound up with the red and white winder before it let rip across the lounge. True to life, it would set off at pace, going some distance before falling sideways onto the carpet sending Evel sprawling under the sofa. The real Evel Knievel rarely fell on a thick pile Axminster however, which is the main reason he suffered approximately four hundred and thirty-three fractures. The other reason he endured so many breaks was that he was an unhinged whack job. Nonetheless, he was unconventional, a renegade, a pioneer…and I guess that’s why he named himself Evel. He also couldn’t spell.
But what the hell, the guy was a total frickin’ legend. He left an impression on me, and that impression was that travelling at breakneck, death-defying speed was the only way to go. Knievel’s on-screen antics had conditioned me; in my imagination I had developed the assumption that cars and bikes went significantly faster than they did in real life. I had this notion that once you planted your foot to the floor in a Renault Four it would hurtle you rapidly towards the horizon, shattering your upper vertebrae in the process. So, my calibration was way off from the start, something I disappointingly realised as soon as I was able to drive unsupervised.
My driving test was a somewhat measured affair but it was merely a sombre precursor to the unhinged calamitous shit-show that was to ensue: a career behind the wheel that featured a veritable smorgasbord of naivety, human error, tragic decision making and a total lack of appreciation for basic health and safety. I mean, I could drive relatively adequately; I was great at operating the accelerator, just not quite as accomplished at steering or brakes. Combining all three elements was, for me, essentially a step too far.
And that’s why, when I was on the road I tended to veer about incoherently, bumping into stuff like a hungry Alsatian in a butchers. Over the years, each new car I purchased was increasingly competent. Faster even. That made them more challenging to control which only served to exacerbate my other motor-related shortcomings. I had developed an unenviable ability to destroy vehicles in increasingly unique ways; colliding with things like walls, posts and other vehicles (sometimes colliding with more than one at a time). And I didn’t discriminate….cars, vans, I didn’t care; anything was fair game. I had become a poster child for the insurance company refusal process.
The list of cars was long and predictable, from BMWs to Subarus. And a Subaru was the genesis. The first vehicle to successfully deliver the power that I had imagined as a boy. A four wheeled jewel from the Far East and a masterpiece of Japanese engineering. It was small, quick and agile and had switchgear that looked like it had been salvaged from a failed R&D project at Mattel. I tossed about in that silver tonk-wagon as if I bore a grudge against myself, driving like I was either perpetually late for somebody’s funeral or early for my own. The day I purchased that absurd hybrid between family transport and turbo-charged lunacy was a defining moment, the birth of my prolific period of driving bell-endery. As a mode of transport, it was ridiculous, being conceptually similar to strapping a jet engine to a frisbee, but it satiated that need to feel alive.
Unfortunately, it also set the standard of how I would drive every vehicle that followed; with a wanton neglect of my own welfare. Having said that, I can’t take the blame for every terrible event that I endured; other similarly inept ‘drivers’ also careered into me on occasion. Call that either karma or just good old bad luck. But, on the whole I have to hold my hands up and admit that from the Subaru to every vehicle that succeeded it, my driving was at best woeful and at worst horrifying. A benevolent, impartial observer might describe it as spectacular and, on rare occasions, nothing short of impressive.
Nonetheless, those years behind the wheel were littered with accidents, haphazard occurrences and road-related misadventures. It is a period somewhat akin to a Shakespearean ‘Tragedy on Tarmac’ and it is only by sheer fluke that I am here to tell the tale. If I had my time again, I’d probably buy a half-track and park the ‘to-hell-or-be-damned’ attitude. As for now, thankfully I no longer drive like I’m on a Hot Wheels corkscrew crash track and my co-ordination is infinitely more refined. However, my past has left me with an emotional scar, and I can sometimes be found staring wistfully into middle distance, fostering dreams of fully autonomous motoring for my children.
But it was a moment lived, and through the grace of a higher being, survived. Like Evel Knievel, my hero, I have experienced moments of exhilaration and excitement, alongside moments of sheer, heart-stopping panic. I have suffered broken limbs, unimaginable insurance costs and a bruised ego. None of them enjoyable. Unlike my hero, I have had the good sense not to take my prowess onto two wheels. And so, the key thing I would take-away from this sorry tale is that Evel Knievel, although a deranged psychopath, was a significantly braver man than I. And the key thing you should take away is….don’t drive like I did. Remember, if you don’t have a fully coordinated team, a forty-foot artic crammed full of fire control equipment and replacement parts, and a couple of medical outriders on hand, then you’re not a stuntman.
