Automatic Driving

I've been driving about 4 different cars recently. With Gloria in Italy taking care of her sister, her car is left parked on the street. I would occasionally start it and take it down to the corner store - just to keep the oil moving. But then I finally cleaned my car and decided that it was easier to take Moki (the dog) certain places in Gloria's car, so I started using her car a bit more. Here's an important distinction:Gloria's car is automatic, all of my vehicles are manual transmission.

I always pay attention when I drive an automatic. Usually I flail my right hand and stomp my left leg, because they don't realize they are not needed. Driving a stick, I have mastered the art of driving, shifting, talking on the phone and eating M&Ms.

But back to the automatic driving. It's a completely different world. It's so easy to drive an automatic. I can't believe how relaxed I was. Too relaxed in fact. I kept thinking, if almost everyone drives an automatic, why is there so much road rage? It's no challenge. And maybe that is the key. Because you don't really need to focus your attention on driving your car, your attention needs more stimulus and you are distracted by the radio, CD player, cell phone, billboard, hot chick at the corner, the dog, whatever is on your mind...

So in a way, it's almost more dangerous to drive an automatic, because you can be distracted more, whereas if you drive a stick and are completely distracted by the world, you won't actually get anywhere - you'll stall. There's a correlation to living your life in there, but I'm too distracted to write about it. ;)

Comments

[glori]

You should try to drive a non automatic car in the Milan crazy traffic at rush hour. I swore I'd never do it again years ago but, guess what? Here I am, shifting and swifting through the crazy Italian drivers when needed. And I don't even have a regularly renewed Italian license, ha!

[pinky the first]

Aaaah, to be driving in Italia! Glori, admit it, it's far better! But then, today I drove my automatic SUV in LA, and really miss the way people drive in Europe, especially when I'm not on my motorcycle. keeping busy certainly does keep the anger in check and that's why I drive/ride so fast. If I try to go with the flow the flow invariably does something that pisses me off even more so it's best that I just keep trying to push my way to the front that doesn't actually exist.