Car Freedom

In case anyone wondered, I am still using Zipcar after winning a yearlong membership in 2009, and I still think it is a pretty cool service for people in the company's service areas who don't feel the need to own a car but want to occasionally be able to drive somewhere.

Today I took a Zipcar out to Shrewsbury for the Regional Action Committee meeting of the New England Region of the NN/LM. It was a lovely day for a drive!

And a meeting.

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Things I Have Recently Learned

After a car crash: 

a) Turn off engine

b) Get out of car

c) Get off road

If you remember b) and c) but forget a), there may be an increased chance that the car will catch fire. 

Cars don't catch fire nearly as often as you'd think from TV, but it does occasionally happen. This will nicely complete the totalizing of a totaled car.

If the car does catch fire, your favorite bag in the backseat will have completely disappeared by the time you see the car again in a non-burning state, since it turns out canvas does not have a high resistance to flames hot enough to fuse keys with steering columns.

If the EMTs cut your shirt off in the ambulance, the ER nurses will let you wear a hospital gown home. Those things are super stylish.

Broken collarbones don't actually hurt that much unless you move.

Sadly, at some point you sort of have to move.

It pretty much sucks when someone veers into your lane and hits you head-on.

Seat belts and air bags are good.

Car accidents are dreadful, but we got out and walked away, so it could have been way more dreadful. Let's party! Carefully, and without moving the arm under the broken collarbone.

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Cutting Cars

As well as being annoyed with the internet, I went to the Low-Car Diet kick-off event yesterday. I will plug it shamelessly on account of I like anything that gets me on the news. My fame must enlarged! Fed like the ravenous beast it is!

Anyway, I got a fine T shirt and a reusable shopping bag and other fun stuff, and got to drool over an attractive bright yellow MINI Cooper. I should have taken a picture.

This is the kind of car I would never actually buy, even if I were going to buy a car, but it would be kind of fun to drive one around.

Also to park it. I always see those tiny cars parked in little spaces that no other car would fit, and think "that person must be glad they have that car!" Good for the city.

Know what's even better for the city, though? No car. Parking in the city is always such a hideous, expensive affair. Outside of big cities, or even in big cities without public transportation, I know you pretty much have to have a car to get anything done (even for me, it makes grocery shopping and visiting people a lot easier), so it's nice to be somewhere with a few more options.

Fabulous Car Fortune Favors Me!

Hey, I won a Zipcar membership as part of their Low-Car Diet promotion!

The membership is only $50 a year, which is really very reasonable if you kind of want to have access to a car, but don't feel the need to own one. Insurance, taxes and parking would be a heck of a lot more than $50, even after you paid for the car.

I'm sort of tempted to reserve some cars and drive around just to try out different models--but that kind of a little bit defeats the purpose of the 'low-car' idea which is that for a month participants try to swear off cars. Also, we have to blog about it.

If only I were comfortable babbling on the internet! It's really too bad, is what it is.

Getting by without a car should be pretty easy for me on account of I already walk and take the train to work, but I've long found the Zipcar idea appealing, so it will be fun to know more about it.

Driving Around

It was super gorgeous out today. The sky was blue, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, the trees were budding, the flowers were blooming.

I celebrated with a trip to the Registry of Motor Vehicles. Obvious, right?

My driver's license expired last week. Happily for those of us who like to accomplish things on the internet, you can renew online, but only every other time the license expires. I renewed online last time, so there was nothing for it but to go to the Registry in person.

Naturally the branch that was three blocks down the street from us closed a few months ago (and I could have sworn I had another year on this license, or I would have planned ahead and gone there), so I had to go to Revere, a few towns over.

Remember how a couple of days ago I mentioned that I can get lost anywhere? Yeah, well, I studied the map, and wrote myself careful directions, and I actually made it to the RMV all right.

But on the way back, somehow, even though all I had to do was retrace a fairly straightforward route I'd traveled an hour earlier, I took some wrong turn or other and wound up in Chelsea. Obvious, right?

Anyway, I am once more a legal driver. I've had a decent run of luck with ID photos in the past, but this time I have a really classically dreadful one, where I'm kind of pursing my lip and looking shiftily sideways, as if I'm not amused, but am faintly guilty about something.

Since this pretty much sums up my general mien most days, I can't deny that this is a good image to represent me for the next ten years (assuming I renew online next time it expires, in order to avoid getting lost in Chelsea again).

I may scan it and use it as my ID photo for this blog.

On a health-related note, I could barely read the top line in the eye test, so I guess I need a new prescription. At least sometime in the next ten years before I have to take that test again.

Exciting Personal Health Issue of the Day

Or yesterday, actually.

Yesterday was Friday, and I was hurrying from work to the train station feeling pretty good on account of it was the weekend and I just finished my first week as a real live librarian, and I think things are going well so far, and it wasn't quite pouring rain the way it has been every other time you look up lately.

Also, a friend we hadn't seen in a while was in town and we were going to meet him and catch up, and that was something fun to look forward to. 

So I was feeling fine, it's Super Happy Fun Friday, and I was very focused on getting to that train station as quickly as possible so I could get downtown and the festivities could commence, and I wanted to be on the other side of the street. 

Since there were a bunch of cars waiting at a red light, I just crossed in front of them even though there wasn't a WALK sign, 'cause hey, they're stopped, they're at a red light. Except I think there was also a green arrow for a turning lane, so I actually scurried right in front of an oncoming car.

I was more bumped than hit by the car, not to sound too dramatic. Also, in retrospect it was a pretty small car. Nevertheless, I don't recommend it.

My focus in an accident shrinks to pretty much just the immediate, so I only remember impressions of "on hood---OK---coming off hood---not good if car keeps going over me---car stopped---good---better pick up my stuff!"

Jumping up and picking up my stuff was for some reason the top priority, so I could get out of the street without leaving anything behind, you know. But considering that I was able to do so, this was a pretty good outcome.

It was totally my fault for dashing into the street without really looking, like an idiot. Ironically, I had recently read this article in the Boston Globe Magazine about how "Boston drivers are bad, but Boston pedestrians might be worse." The piece notes that twice as many pedestrians as drivers/passengers of cars were killed in Boston over the last five years; 14 just last year.

When I read the article (which is quite interesting, if anyone's in the mood for some information on traffic planning) I thought, well, I jaywalk and stuff, everyone does, but I'm not completely reckless about it like some people! 

I spoke too soon.

But I'm fine, other than being embarrassed by the fact that I'm a reckless idiot pedestrian. I got up and walked away, hung out with my friend last night and had a good time, and today have just a couple of scrapes and bruises. I didn't even lose or break any of my stuff.

I expect the car wasn't going very fast, and the impact was probably about what it would have been if, say, a large human had charged me and knocked me down. While wearing full plate mail. (Which happens more often than you'd think. I lead an eventful life.)

On the one hand, it kind of sucked---my Super Happy Fun Friday, and then I get hit by a car! That's terrible!

On the other hand, I got hit by a car and was fine---I'm the luckiest person around! That day was great!

In closing, I'm going to try to be less of a reckless idiot pedestrian in future (thinking back, I could probably have stood to arrive a few seconds later at the train station). I'm really lucky to have gotten out of a collision with a car without any real damage, and I know it could have been bad. 

I also apologize to the person who hit me: it was my fault, and I'm sorry to have messed up her evening by making her deal with the stress of hitting someone with her car, which pretty much no one wants to do. I bet that sucks too. 

For those following along at home: if you must dart into traffic, at least look around.