driving – Starshine Roshell

Uber for Junior?

Published on April 30, 2019

Ride-Hailing Companies Recognize Parents’ Need for Kid-Hauling Help

Here’s a little secret no one tells you about raising children but so help me it’s true: The job is 23 percent parenting and 77 percent schlepping.

From lugging the buggers around in utero to hauling them here and there in Bjorns, slings, wraps, bassinets, and strollers-that-ought-to-have-turn-signals to driving them back and forth to playdates, school, lessons, sporting events, camps, medical appointments, and emergency trips to In-N-Out Burger — being a modern mom or dad is less about shepherding your kids toward adulthood than shuttling them to activities.

Sure, the most terrifying automobile ride you’ll ever take is the one home from the hospital with your firstborn child. It seems the entire world outside of your vehicle is both designed and determined to wreak calamity on the fragile human you’ve just labored to create.

Why Uber Drivers Hate You

Published on December 26, 2016

I love Uber. During a recent family trip to New Orleans, we took 10 Uber rides over five days, hopping in and out of strangers’…

Road Hazards: Driving with My Teen

Published on August 28, 2014

Like you, I’m a spiritual person given to pondering the great unanswerable questions of life. Like this little existential mystery:

Why in Saab’s name are 15-year-olds allowed to operate moving vehicles on public roadways?

I can think of no good reason why a person who still drops food from his mouth with stunning regularity — and alarming nonchalance — should be permitted to propel a half-ton, motorized murder machine through cityscapes occupied by innocent and unsuspecting humans.

It ain’t right.

So it’s only natural that I lurch into a sudden brace-for-impact stance when my son is driving and we are careening down a freeway off-ramp at rush hour into a snarl of ghastly gridlock.

“Mom, really? Can you not do this?” the giant child says, dramatically mimicking my dashboard death grip.

“Very well,” I say, calmly. “But what you didn’t see is that I stopped myself from screaming, ‘PLEASE, GOD, DON’T LET ME DIE IN AN UNDERPASS!’ So … that’s something.”

I fear for his safety, sure. And that of his fellow motorists. But it’s more than that. It’s bigger. From the first time he operated a wheeled vehicle — the Elmo lawn mower that helped him take his first steps, his fudgy feet flap-slap-flapping the ground as he pushed that thing from couch to kitchen and back again (boy, I hope he doesn’t read this) — I’ve been scared by what it signifies.

Stone Starts Driving

Published on June 19, 2014

My son Stone, 15, wrote my column again this week.

Hey again. It’s me, Stone. You may remember me from last summer, when I ranted about parental oppression. Well, I’m back, with something else I need to get off my chest. This time it’s about the surprising, brand-new world of driving.

When I passed the driver’s test and got my permit back in April, the training taught me to be a very nice, friendly, rule-abiding driver (always walk around the car and inspect it before driving, signal 100 feet before the turn, etc.). But when I backed out of my driveway and entered into the real world of driving, I was like a small, fluffy bunny in a pit of angry, rabid Rottweilers. The polite world of driver’s ed was ripped away to reveal a world of people cutting off other people and not using their turn signals — and full of, ahem, parental help: “STONE, ACCELERATE, YOU NEED TO ACCELERATE!”

Of course, I haven’t let all this affect my driving. I still drive slowly and carefully, and the incessant honking around me from those Porsche SUVs driven by soccer moms who need to get to their jewelry-making class is drowned out by the song “Let It Go,” which is on indefinite repeat (Yes, I am the only male on the planet who insanely loves Frozen). I am determined not to stoop to the level of other Santa Barbara drivers. As Queen Elsa says, “Don’t let them in, don’t let them see. Be the good girl you always have to be.”

Cars Are for Banging

Published on January 28, 2010

There are moments in life when you realize you’re different from everyone else. Like fundamentally, even freakishly, different. And that you may never see things the way others do.

I feel that way when people exalt Jack Johnson (I’d yawn if I could summon the energy). Or when they confess that public speaking terrifies them (the mere sight of a podium turns me on). Or when they utter incongruous phrases like, “It’s too sweet for my taste.” (Wha… ?).

Those sentiments don’t fit into the jigsaw puzzle that is my brain. Nor does this one: “Yikes. What happened to your car?”

I hear it a lot. When I pull into a friend’s driveway, see an acquaintance at the gas station, or drive through the school drop-off line.

“Ouch. What happened to your poor car?”

It always takes me a second to figure out what they’re talking about. Then I remember the sizable dent and scrape on the side of my Honda, the result of parking next to a short pole and carelessly slamming into it as I backed out. That was two years ago, and — though the sound it made was otherworldly, causing bystanders to wince and tighten their shoulders up around their earlobes — I’ve scarcely thought of it since. In fact, I only recall it when people gasp and offer heartfelt sympathy, as though it had happened to my face, rather than my fender.

Tag: driving