I will confess right now that I uphold the ”all women are bad drivers” stereotype. I’m not embarrassed by this. I’m a huge fan of stereotypes- they make for a convenient excuse whenever I fall into any one of them. In this case: I’m a woman, I can’t drive, and I’m proud, damnit! No, I don’t mean this literally. I am physically capable of driving and do so every day.

I am mentally incapable of driving. This has a lot to do with me being a poor-decision-maker. I’m glad there are no tests that calculate your decision making process that are required for the license of operating a vehicle in America. I would fail on all of the following measurements.

I’m very impulsive and can’t think long and hard about my actions when I’m faced with a spontaneous event that requires an urgent reaction. I don’t like to be put under pressure to think. Pressure makes me nervous and being nervous makes me act on the first thought that comes to mind. Why? Because this takes pressure off making a decision which makes me less nervous and in some ways feel accomplished. I think this is my body’s/mind’s way of protecting me from dealing with prolonged anxiety. This, of course, leads me to make a lot of poor decisions which become evident the second after I make them because I think better when I’m not nervous. When the most perfect decision comes in hindsight, it is always obvious, and always too late.

Last week I was in at least the 8th car accident of my life. I believe that it wasn’t my fault. I believe that most of my accidents weren’t my fault. I believe that there are a lot of poor-decision-makers who are, also, licensed drivers.

On my way to pick up my boyfriend from the hospital I found myself in a gridlock in the middle of Manhattan in the middle of rush (lunch) hour. I was first in line at a traffic light when a commercial truck driving on the cross street stopped in the middle of the intersection, blocking my way. As the light turned green I felt the pressure to start driving. I had to figure out a way of going around the truck. I became nervous- the light was green; I wasn’t moving; cars were honking; I couldn’t just sit there. A decision had to be made- fast! One way or another, I had to drive around the truck. I decided to go in front of the car to my left which seemed to be at a full stop disregarding the green light. As I thought this car was obviously letting me go, I inched my way forward. This is when the car went from full stop to full head-on collision with the left side of my car. Oops, that was a bad decision. Right away I realize that the right decision would have been to not do anything. The pressure I felt of driving at the green light caused me to take immediate action. If I had taken even 1 minute to decide what to do, the truck would have already been out of my way.

For some reason, I felt less anxiety after the accident than before it. Once the accident happened the cops were involved, and, although I knew it would turn into a 3 hour debacle, they would take all of the necessary steps to resolve it. All the pressure was off. I wasn’t nervous. In some way, I even felt accomplished.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 11th, 2006 at 10:35 am and is filed under About me. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.