Story 13: Don't get hot feet

Robert Moses, the architect of many of the scenic roads on Long Island, probably never envisioned that his roads would become so busy or so dangerous. If you drive down some of his famous parkways, you will inevitably pass memorials to the many people who have died along the way. Fortunately, I was never one of them, but I definitely could easily have been a statistic due to the arrogance of my youth, carelessness, or simply just bad luck.

In the early 1990’s I was working as a Hebrew school teacher in Merrick, Long Island. The school was located on Merrick road near the entrance to the Meadowbrook Parkway, an important north-south route close to the malls and Jones beach. It was a hot June day and I was driving a car my brother Dan had given me, a vintage extra-large brown Detroit metal. The car ran pretty well except for the air conditioner.

On that memorable day, I was wearing a pair of brand new maroon penny-loafers and my feet were rapidly becoming hot and sweaty, so I decided to remove them. Little did I know that driving without shoes is illegal in New York, something about a bare foot not being able to grip the pedals effectively. It’s also against the law to drive without your shirt on. I never found out whether driving without pants is illegal. I imagine that it’s a crime as well, or at least it should be.

Aside from the lack of air conditioning I was feeling great that day. I was done with school for the year, the sun was shining,  and summer tunes were wafting through the radio, everything seemed fine until I got to the light right before the entrance ramp. I pressed my foot on the brake to slow the car down, and then realized that something was not right. The penny loafer was stuck under the brake and the car wasn’t stopping.

I wish I could say that I had remembered to put the car into a lower gear, or gently applied the parking brake (Things I know now from 25 years of reading AAA magazine and taking several classes in defensive driving to lower my insurance) but I was only 25 years old and the only thing going through my mind was, "S---t I can’t stop.”

So, what happened? You guessed it, I crashed the car into the back of some old man’s car. When we collided he got out of the car and started yelling,

“Are you out of your fucking mind? What happened?” He bellowed.

“The car didn’t stop.” I lied.

It was a lie. A big fat lie that I felt guilty about for years. I even told the same lie to my parents, my brother, the police, and an EMT who stopped to see if he could help. I stayed true to that lie for ten years until the truth came out at a Thanksgiving dinner. The only thing funny about the accident was when I went to North Shore Hospital emergency room later that day to have them take a look at my neck, an Israeli female doctor examining me saw marks on my neck and asked,

“Are those marks from the accident?” 

“No,” I replied, “That’s from something else.”

The marks were in fact hickies from a former girlfriend.

Life Lesson Thirteen:  Cars are like condoms.  Sometimes they both work fine, but It’s how we use or misuse them that counts.  Take responsibility when using both, and if you do have an “accident” be honest, and remember “If the shoe fits, wear it.”