05.14.2008 - 11:08 a.m.

I�m not the kind of person who has an inherent driving style�I tune to the car I am driving. Like when I lived with my parents, there was a Crown Victoria station wagon, which I drove experimentally, curious about its turning radius in parking lots or its capacity to hold my brother�s entire band and collection of amps and equipment.

There was also a Civic hatchback, stick shift, which I drove as if it were invisible, leaving me skimming along the road unencumbered by machinery. For whatever reason, possibly involving my brother�s preference for the Civic, I felt more at ease in the station wagon.

In the first car I owned myself, an aging DeVille, my driving was ponderous and relaxed, almost like a limo driver�s. Sure, I would speed once in a while, or gun it at a stoplight, but always, always responsibly. Smoothly.

In the Miata, my first (and probably last) car bought new, my driving was snappy, precise, and a bit frivolous. I kept the radio loud, and I wasn�t ashamed to belt a song out along with it. Even when I didn�t know the words.

In my husband�s pickup, my driving is one-handed and as sloppy as the steering. I tend to keep the radio on one of the hard-rock stations, and I slouch in the seat. I ride the gas pedal, sometimes punching it just to feel it shudder as it tries to switch too many gears. I am the most careless driver I have ever been.

The Ford Escort I�m driving while the insurance people decide on fault is four years older than my driver's license. In it, my driving is economical and defensive, maybe even a bit paranoid. As little as it is worth in real terms, as much as I dislike it, this car is more precious than the others have been�it is borrowed, and thus not mine to break, and for the first time in my life, it is a necessity, not a luxury. I don�t even turn on the radio.

But today when I cracked the windows, driving to work, the air was warm and summer-sweet, and it smelled the same as it ever had with the top down in my Miata. So long as there�s a road, so long as that road is the same one that winds through Utah, over the Rockies, out to San Francisco or up to New York, I�ll be okay.

-stonebridge

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