Highway to Hooters

My truck is a physics experiment waiting to happen. It is a magnet for the intertially challenged. It's an exercise in momentum, friction, and operator error. There's nothing wrong, odd, or really even damaged about my truck. (Actually, since my last little venture into the realms of Newtonian experimentation, a good portion of the truck is brand new.) So why is it that I find myself in these odd situations? Do I have poor driving habits? Is it my truck's chameleon-like (or better yet, cephalopod-like) blending abilities with its surroundings? I don't think so. I largely believe that the source of my displeasure and quite too-often adventures lies in the complete ineptness of Peoria drivers. Allow me to explain.

Prior to moving to Peoria, I had been in... wait... let me add them up.... ZERO accidents. This includes all of my driving career, which has consisted most of late teen and early 20's driving mentality; not exactly the "glory years" for male driving records. Since I've been in Peoria, I've caused or have been at fault in... wait... still processing.... ZERO accidents. So, you're probably asking, "So Chris, how is it that you've found yourself in two accidents (discounting the time the earth opened up and nearly swallowed my entire car) in less than 18 months?" Well, it has a lot to do with yet another syndrome that I will coin and describe:

PDS (Peoria Driver's Syndrome): A syndrome predominately affecting the decision making parts of the brain causing irrational, sporadic, and lemur-like driving mentality. The causes of PDS are still largely a mystery, but general consensus is that the proper mix of driving conditions (just enough traffic to cause significant accidents, but no so much that one has to concentrate, dwell on, or be remotely concerned with, driving) can trigger PDS-like symptoms. How does one know if he/she has PDS? Following is a non-exhaustive list of symptoms that have been observed in natural environments:

1. You put on your cell-phone earpiece before you put your keys in the ignition.
2. You drive 30 mph over the speed limit on a dark, hilly, residential street, cross over the center line, collide with a small pickup truck before smashing head-on into an oncoming vehicle.
   
3. You store various makeup parafanalia on your sun visor.
4. You approach a small pickup truck from the rear, stopped at a major intersection, neglecting to properly calculate necessary deceleration and change of momentum required, thus creating an illustration of the first law of classical physics. This is especially true if you are a female, on your way to ICC, and you have the physical appearance that both the left and right lobes of your brain have somehow detached themselves from your nervous system and have found themselves lodged, quite prominently, as two bulging lumps on your chest.
5. You eat breakfast, feed your entire family, balance your checkbook, and perform Kegal exercises while crossing over a construction-ridden bridge on your way to work
   
6. You're from Indiana.

The cure for PDS is still an area of great scientific debate. There are radical views that extensive training, probationary periods, and fines will resolve symptoms associated with PDS. In practice, most believe a more Darwinist approach, in which the problem with simply "work itself out."

As for my own personal views...

• Yeah for Darwin!
• Seriously, how do you miss an entire vehicle sitting at an intersection?
• Having a good body doesn't make up for PDS in any way, shape, or form, but it can't be a bad thing either, can it?