Get Out Of My Way! April, 2000 Coincidence or fate? I asked myself that question for a while. Just days after uploading the first set of files to All Over The Road (my previous website) in February, 2000, I found myself all over the road. Literally. Storrow Drive in Boston, to be specific. I love Saabs. They look great, they go like bats, and they're as sturdy as standard-issue Army tanks, for which I will be forever grateful. They do have their faults, of course, one of which is that they're a bit top-heavy for their wheelbase. I got object lessons in each of these qualities after trying to change lanes on a speedy little three-lane parkway. Sure, the road was a bit wet from melted snow, and that particular stretch of road curves like a Porsche commercial, but I've pushed the envelope in my Saabs (four in a row) and I know how they handle. No problem. Except for the car in the right lane, the one sitting in my blind spot. I downshifted and tucked the Saab between the right-side car, which dropped back quickly, and the car that had been in front of me in the center lane (goes like a bat). The back wheels broke loose and skidded to the right, bounced off the curb, then skidded in the opposite direction. I spun across the highway like a stunt driver in a B movie and slammed back end first into the concrete median wall, where I found myself facing traffic and blocking the fast lane. How I managed not to get hit by oncoming traffic will forever remain a mystery. When I climbed out and took a look at the back end, mashed against the concrete wall, I noticed that the bumper had crushed, but that the body itself was undamaged (sturdy). The suspension... well, that's another story. Apart from the mangled rims, my mechanic sang a sad litany of expensive problems, beginning with "bent axle". Say no more. The insurance appraiser, however, not only said more but wrote it down and added it up and declared the car totaled. Once again, I had the sad task of unloading all of my accumulated stuff - cassettes, cell-phone charger, dusty blue cubes of Master pool chalk - from the car, like gathering items from a lover's apartment after a breakup. I've been through this mourning process before, although the last Saab, a light-gray battleship I called the Silver Beast, was easier to bid farewell when the clutch and transmission died than the black one before it, which was beaten to a crumple by a skidding truck while innocently (and legally) parked. I liked this one a lot. It was bright red, and I dubbed it the Fire Engine on first sight. I've been grieving for this one. I hadn't had a car accident since I was a teenager and rear-ended some jerk who stopped short on a right turn with a green light. And in an instant I became carless, at my own hands. Amazing. I'm an action-movie fan. I like it all: car chases, gunplay, gangsters, you name it. What I've found, though, is that what's cool in the movies isn't so cool in real life. I'm sure that my crash was a spectacular sight from anywhere except where I happened to be. And I climbed out, but the next day I was walking like Sarah Polley at the end of Go: a full-body sprain. The human body was not designed to go from 30mph to zero in an instant. I thought of hanging an Out Of Order sign around my neck. Someone suggested to me that it was fate: I was meant to move on to a new car. I'm not a Calvinist, but it's true that one of the first things to occur to me, post-crash, was that the car had needed to go in for servicing anyway. And there's the odd coincidence of the name and spirit of my (now former) site and the physical reality of the crash, which makes me idly suspicious of a mischievous intervention from whatever powers may be. But the accident was exactly that: an accident. I can't buy stock in a theory that suggests a capricious higher power playing pinball with my car. I have moved on to a new car. It's a zippy little black 1997 Saab (what did you expect?), a 5-speed with a decent stereo and a wider wheelbase. It looks like a bullet and goes like a bat. It hasn't nicknamed itself yet, but it will, and I've gotten pretty fond of it. And just in case I find myself all over the road again, it's as sturdy as a tank. Just in case.