Dubious Driving Distinction

I drive a lot. For work, for pleasure and therby contributing my 2 cents to green house gases. Of course that was pun intended. I carry a lot of maps in my car, infact I am kind of obsessed with maps to being on the brink of OCD. I rather not have a GPS on my car, if I do I keep fiddling with it until a get shout from co passenger who is scared hell out of their life at my erratic driving and obsession to find different and shorter route to reach the destination, rather than on the road ahead of me.

This obsession with maps has origins in Morgantown, where I began my first driving on interstates. We (my friends and I) would go to Pittsburgh several times and I would get lost most of the times either to the airport or to the temple or to both. This one time I made my friend miss her flight who was on her way to her first job interview. And this was in 2001 when the country was in middle of a huge recession and job interviews were very though to find. There begins my story.

On my first long distance drive, from NJ back to Morgantown, I almost killed everyone. Every time I have a truck pass me, I would take up the shoulder. Damn the nasty sound that the shoulder edge makes waking up all the other sleeping passengers. On the last segment of the trip I exchanged the wheel with another guy who got himself a traffic violation ticket in Morgantown.

On my next long distance drive, Srikanth and I decided to take an alternative route to Detroit. A more scenic and country route would reduce the distance and make our drive more enjoyable. Or so Srikanth convinced me. This long drive gave me distinction of being the only person on Earth to recieve 2 speeding violations in a span of less than an hour. What was I thinking? I was thinking like in India if you show your violation for the day there will be no more violations. BOY was I wrong. The rest of the drive, Srikanth took over. Was he glad to take over the wheel!! On our way back he took us to ghetto Detroit downtown region without his headlights on and soon we were followed by cops. That is a different story.

After my move from Morgantown to Pittsburgh, it was time for my friend/colleagues to bear the brunt of my driving. We would car pool to movies or evening get togethers. I would occasionally violate red lights. To their shock, I was nonchalant and would float a famous quote of mine. "Jaha Vamsi Alla jata hai, Right of way usi ka hota hai". That quote was quite popular among us then. I proved myself right by being lucky enough to get no tickets or being in an accident. Phew!!!

The next two years after my move from Pittsburgh to Dallas, I drove occasionally, mostly rental cars they were. Moving to Philadelphia required no long commute as I was about a mile away from work and lived in downtown. I have mellowed down since then. Driving in philadelphia can mellow even the insanest of drivers. You have only two options while driving in Philadelphia, drive carefully and live or Die. It's like Sean P. Diddy slogan for 2004 elections - "Vote or Die" as if there is no third option like not vote(like me, I havae never voted to date) and still live. But truly driving carefully in Philadelphia is the only viable option.

But my obsession with maps continues. I take several printouts from, Google maps, MapQuest, Yahoo Maps, USA Atlas and a book of Pennsylvania Maps in my Acura which is loaded with GPS. I don’t know why I do it but I do it. The only reason I can think of is I want to be certain where I am going so I can reach there without missing. The trauma of a missed airport still haunts me.