"Highway Hypnosis". I can still hear that fateful phrase as clearly today
as when it was first spoken to me. "Highway Hypnosis". I have been waiting for
this dreaded impairment to strike me down as I drive along the highway. "Highway
Hypnosis". This calamity can befall any driver at any time. I was enlightened
about this during "Drivers Education Class". Now I tip my Dale Earnhardt cap to you folks who were raised in urban environments. I am sure that you had many opportunities to drive a stolen car before you were sixteen. On the other hand, where I grew up, everyone was driving before the age of thirteen. We are not referencing sitting on Daddy's lap and slipping the hydr-o-matic into reverse and backing the Buick down the driveway. I am talking about blasting unsafe, unregistered vehicles across fallow fields of terra firma and ascending the steep bituminous climbs of the Appalachians. These vehicles were normally reserved for the transport of feed or pulling stumps. This is how I learned to drive. Well, when I turned sixteen, my High School offered a "Drivers Education Class". As an incentive, a nominal Insurance Discount was the enticement to enroll. Considering that any "discount" would make my already financially "strapped" father delighted, I signed up. However, there was one drawback. It was VERY un-cool to be in "Drivers Education Class". Any self-respecting, hot-rod driving teen-age hellion would not be caught dead in the "Class". The timid and the faint of heart surrounded you. Un-cool.  continued...
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Rear View is a monthly column looking back at the days these cars were new.
| "The timid and the faint of heart surrounded you." |
