Adjusting cautiously to the unfamiliar vehicle


April 30, 2002

I found myself puttering around Reno this weekend in my mother's car, and I am glad to report that in terms of serious accidents, I only had three near-misses.

Let me explain something here: My mother's car -- a 1994 Mercury Grand Marquis in fine condition -- actually works like a vehicle is supposed to. On the flip side, my car -- a 1990 Chevy Corsica best known for a minor steering column fire two years ago, the cause of which was never found -- actually works like a vehicle under the influence of high-powered medication, if such a thing were possible. Therefore, being used to my car, I had quite an adjustment to make when behind the wheel of a real car.

Not so coincidentally, all of my near accidents took place on construction-ravaged sections of McCarran Boulevard. While I understand that these areas of McCarran needed some serious work, the road as it is now -- down to one lane in certain sections (from Virginia Street to Lakeside Drive and from Mayberry Drive to just north of Fourth Street) -- is creating mass havoc for folks used to rocketing down McCarran at Warp 3.

My first near accident took place on McCarran between Fourth and Mayberry. At one point, there was a minor traffic back-up which caused a brief, no-big-deal traffic stoppage. But I was in kind of a hurry, and when traffic started moving again, I stepped on the accelerator slightly harder than normal.

I almost ended up in the trunk of a Volvo. You see, when I accelerate in my Corsica, the car acts like I have merely made a suggestion. It may go, yes, but it isn't going to be in a hurry about it. But in the Grand Marquis, when you accelerate, it acts like a greyhound being offered a Milk Bone after downing a pint of Red Bull. It GOES, man.

Anyway, the second near-accident happened on McCarran near Talbot Lane. Some moron who deserves an anal probe with a glowing branding iron had the nerve -- the NERVE! -- to pull out of a business park in front of me, effectively cutting me off. I was forced to press the brake pedal a bit more forcefully than normal. The car came to a near-screeching halt, meaning I avoided the moron in front of me by half a mile and scared the bejesus out of the poor sap behind me. Mom's Grand Marquis stops on a dime. My Corsica stops if given a two-day advance warning.

Finally, the third near accident happened close to the location of the first one, again on a one-lane section of McCarran near Fourth. I was listening to a popular local radio station that, for some reason, has no signal strength in northwest Reno, meaning that all deejays sound like they are drunk with cotton swabs jammed down their throats. However, this station has a Verdi translator just a few clicks down the radio dial.

When I went to change the frequency, I discovered that Mom's radio blows serious chunks. The radio -- obviously the piece of doo doo that came with the car from the factory -- has no dial or means of going to a specific frequency. All it has is a cretin "scan" function, which for some reason only stops at either every fifth station or a station which features yodeling music, whichever comes first. Compare this to the Pioneer CD player with the AM/FM radio and a detachable face plate in my car, which will go to the nearest twentieth of a point in terms of radio frequency. (So what if my CD player is worth more than the car it's installed in? I am young, male and blond. It's my prerogative.) Anyway, short story long, I almost rear-ended a Caughlin Ranch yuppie in a Beemer as I tried vainly to get my mom's car radio to go to the station I wanted.

All things considered, I am quite proud that I managed to drive my mother's car for three days without colliding with any other vehicles. And now that I am back behind the wheel of Corsica, I am glad to have some decent music on again. After all, I need something good to listen to as I extinguish my car's impromptu fires, don't I?

Jimmy Boegle is a fifth-generation Nevadan who is baffled that the security line at the Reno-Tahoe airport is five times as long as the security line at the Vegas airport. Jimmy's column appears here Tuesdays, and a column archive may be viewed at www.jimmyboegle.com. 1