On The Road: Toulouse and Back

July 9, 2013

          My sister is visiting from New York for the week, so I set out at noon to meet her flight, which was scheduled to arrive at 2:05 p.m. from Charles de Gaulle.  I set the GPS, but by now I knew the road: D620 past Villalier, then Villegly, then the entrance to the péage, toll road A61, straight to Blagnac.  I did fine until I got to the point where I had to take the side road to Blagnac/Auch and missed the exit.  No harm done, I went around Carcassonne on the periphérique, the ring road around the town, and picked up the Blagnac exit in the other direction.

          Returning with Jazmin in the car, I travelled for a bit on the Carcassonne road that is part of the national road system, but not a péage.  Eventually we picked up the toll road to make it to Caunes sooner: Jazmin had been up for about 24 hours, and deserved to enjoy her rest, sooner rather than later.

           Jazmin is a much better driver than I am.  For one thing, she got her license in her teens, and so has been driving for almost forty years.  She also drives a stick shift, as well as an automatic transmission, although she prefers the manual.  As an experienced driver, she understands what someone behind the wheel is supposed to do and not do.  Like Francine, she finds my bad habit of touching the gas pedal, then removing my foot, reprovable.

          And it is understandable.  I now know that doing so can create motion sickness in a passenger, or at least jostle them more than necessary.  The thing is, I don't trust myself to keep a steady speed.  And when I see a driver at a crossing perpendicular to the road on which I am driving, if the driver rolls forward, rather than stopping sharply, I want to ease up on the gas.

          Jazmin has explained to me that it's important to trust that the other driver will stop and let me have the right of way; but for me, it's easier to be told such a thing than believe it.

          Driving an automobile at an allowed speed, but one that, should there be a miscalculation, could result in serious injury or death is a bet millions of people make every day.  There are so many actions and decisions made behind the wheel in a matter of seconds --do I enter the roundabout after the big truck but before the passenger car; do I enter the fast lane to pass the truck in front of me and do I have enough room between the front of the truck and the car in front of it to slide back into the slower lane well in front of the truck?  Even if the cars in front of me are moving at a steady, fast pace, do I change lanes, to keep my eyes from glazing over at the road in front of me?  Are my reflexes as sharp as they were when I started driving in the morning?

          Someone told me that I display the traits of an anxious person.  This is because someone unanxious would not think how something might go wrong while they were performing an action they were trained to do.  Hearing this, I am reminded of a study of the relationship between accurate perception of reality and psychological state.  That is, "Do optimistic people perceive the world accurately, and do depressives perceive it through a glass darkly?"

          The result of the study demonstrated that actually depressives had a more accurate view of situations than those not depressed.  Which is sort of how I feel about driving.

           And by the way, the GPS completely loused up the return trip from Toulouse back to Caunes-Minervois.  Except that this time, ignoring its catatonic drone, I followed my instincts and arrived in Caunes without a hitch.