Precious Parking

The high school should really allow all students to drive to school. There is no reason just to limit it to seniors. If there is a space shortage, we should raise money and build a parking structure, just like they have at the colleges. 

There is no way my Precious would take the bus. The bus arrives far too early in the morning and Precious needs to sleep late. Otherwise, we get cranky and foul-mouthed and that doesn’t fly in my house! Walking or biking are just not practical. Besides, Precious has to take sports equipment and a computer and the hot/cold tray that Cook prepares for lunch each day. The bus makes so many stops and is not air-conditioned (or I think it isn’t, I’m not sure) and my Precious can’t take that kind of environment. 

Besides, there is only one bus after sports practice and it goes just about everywhere. It would take Precious a half hour or more to get home on it. That isn’t practical. Precious has tutoring in all the major subjects twice a week, private sports coaching, ACT and SAT tutoring, and frequent meetings with our college helper. I love that college helper. She is making sure that Precious is on top of all those deadlines. Precious doesn’t have to do anything! This college stuff is so stressful. Why can’t we just let Precious into my alma mater and be done with it? Precious will be going there anyway, why do we have to hop through all these meaningless hoops? 

So, I have a friend of a friend who has a little home a few blocks from the school. They charge pay $500 per semester for Precious to park at their house. We were going to let Precious take the Escalade that we usually keep at the lake house, but it’s two years old, so we got a Porche to replace it and Precious will drive that. We’ll just have to use my Land Rover when we are up north. It is a sacrifice we are just going to have to make. 

I wish my friend’s friend’s home was a little closer to the school. As it is, Precious has to walk three blocks. I park there when I stop by and take Precious’s Land Rover to the gas station and fill it up. Precious doesn’t have time for that. I can’t believe how long it takes me and that car always needs so much gas! 

I don’t know what we would do if Precious wasn’t able to drive to school. I can’t get up that early. It is an ungodly time, anyway. None of our people have arrived yet, well Cook has, but that is to make Precious’s breakfast and lunch. Cook can’t be expected to be a driver, too. 

I am concerned that, once Precious can drive to school, the staff will take all the good parking places. I don’t want Precious parking so far away from the building that it is the same distance as the friend’s friend’s house! That would be so unfair! I think kids who park in the nearby neighborhoods should have special spots right near the door when they become seniors. After all, they have been waiting to drive to school their entire lives! 

SUV POV?

On two recent vacations, I rented SUVs. Although I considered purchasing an SUV when I shopped for a new car, I have never driven one for longer than a test drive until these rentals. One of the SUVs was a three-row luxury vehicle. The other was a mid-sized sports SUV. 

After spending almost four weeks driving these vehicles (they are NOT cars), I still fail to understand their appeal. Why would anyone choose to drive these trucks? 

The original purpose of the sports utility vehicle was either to be a workhorse by pulling and hauling heavy materials or to drive on unpaved or inhospitable surfaces. Many years ago, SUVs became fashionable. The Hummer became the symbol of the SUV fad. 

When I purchased my first minivan, I looked at SUVs, but when it came to hauling people and their stuff, the minivan was both easier for the people and more storage for the stuff. The third row in the SUV I rented was almost unusable. Perhaps very small children or people without legs would be comfortable – when they could contort themselves to get back there. 

When we used the third row, the remaining storage capacity was so diminished that we could not carry much luggage. When we only had four people in the car, we had plenty of storage. Unlike my old minivan, the SUV could not carry people and stuff, but only one or the other – and the people not that well. 

People sometimes like to ride higher than traffic. It is not a feature exclusive to SUVs – nor do all SUVs have it equally. Minivans and a few other types of trucks also ride higher than a standard sedan. Some of the crossovers, which look more like station wagons, ride closer to the height of many cars. 

Safety is an often-stated reason for purchasing a larger vehicle. Are SUVs safer? According to a recently released study, passengers in the second row of an SUV aren't as safe as those in front. But this study looked at injuries to the people in the SUVs, not to those they hit! Are SUVs safer when they are not driven well? How many times have you seen a driver of an SUV on the road or in a parking lot who could not manage the large vehicle? Driving these beasts takes skill that many people have not mastered.

My rentals were more complicated to navigate in a parking lot or small spaces. The larger SUV had an interesting feature: the parking brake automatically engaged whenever the vehicle was parked. The SUV was so heavy that the regular parking setting could not keep it from rolling! 

My family owns hybrid cars. We are used to getting between 35 to 55 miles per gallon. Both of the SUVs I rented were gas guzzlers. I was shocked at how often I had to fill the tank. I was also shocked at the size of the tanks! I spent almost $100 to fill it up! That is three or four fill-ups for our cars at home! 

Why would anyone pay so much? Perhaps it makes sense if the SUV was full of people or stuff much of the time, but my experience is that most people drive alone. Why would you drive by yourself in an enormous, expensive, gas-guzzling truck? Does it say that you are so wealthy that the costs, both financially and environmentally, are meaningless to you? 

Gas prices are in the news constantly. People complain about them. Drivers of electric cars comment to me about how they are immune to them.  If you drive an SUV that gets less poor mileage and use it as your regular daily vehicle, I can only assume that the cost of gas might be breaking your budget. If it isn’t, you are indeed fortunate and wealthy. 

As I am writing, I am coming to the conclusion that driving a larger SUV is a kind of fashion and status statement. It isn’t about practicality, safety, fuel economy, or environmental impact. It is about wanting to drive the largest truck on the road. 

I have decided not to rent SUVs anymore. They are too costly, too difficult to drive, require trips to the gas station too often, and haul people poorly. If I need a truck, I’ll rent a van or minivan. From now on, I am sticking with cars!  

The Price of Parking

In 1999, a parent of a Barrington High School student purchased a home next to the school. This parent had no intention of living in the house. The family already lived in the district. The only reason for this huge expenditure was to purchase the driveway. The parent had bought a parking spot for their child, a very expensive parking spot.

Setting aside the cost of the car, what does this choice mean? For most schools, including my own, there is either free or inexpensive bussing service available to anyone who lives more than a mile from the school. No child should HAVE to drive to school. Even those who live close form carpools.

What does it mean to spend thousands of dollars for a car and parking spot for a sixteen-year-old?

First, it means you are living well. This is an issue for affluent families.

Second, it says that convenience is important. Some parents don’t want the child to take another means to school. The bus is not a good choice for them. Why? What is wrong with carpools? They seem like a great way to share the cost. But financial cost is clearly not the key factor in these decisions.

We haven’t even thought about environmental considerations.

And what about safety?

Young drivers make mistakes. Young drivers are more likely to make mistakes when they are in a hurry. One hopes these errors are benign and easily repaired. Sometimes, young drivers are using devices or otherwise distracted. “Good” and “responsible” kids are still inexperienced drivers. Young drivers and teenagers in general need supervised practice. We must help them develop good habits.

If you were going to visit a high school and would be staying beyond the end of the class day, would you choose to park in the student lot or the faculty lot? Why? What about on a snowy day?

Having a group of inexperienced drivers in one place can be dangerous. The student lot at the high school is only one example. I live in a neighborhood that abuts our high school. Some of my neighbors allow students to park in their driveways. Many of these kids pay for that privilege. Of course, they are not charging Barrington prices, but again, between the cost of the car (and gas and upkeep) and the price of parking, this option is only available to families with means.

The high school allows most senior students to park for a fee in the student lot. Therefore, the parkers at my neighbors’ homes are most often younger, less experienced drivers. There are 152 homes in my subdivision. I don’t know how many kids are parking, but judging from the kids walking down my street after school, it must be more than twenty-five.

So, around 3:30, we have many young experienced drivers moving through our neighborhood. At just about the same time, the bus from the middle school drops off. Kids who are walking or biking are leaving the high school at that time, too. We are close enough to the elementary school that we do not qualify for free busing, so on nice days, we might also have younger students going home, as well.

A few years ago, a student of mine was riding his bicycle home. As he rode away from the school and down one of the streets in my neighborhood, a student driver who was “renting” a neighbor’s driveway pulled out a little faster than was safe. She cut off the cyclist and he hit her car. He was thrown over the car and landed on the street. When the EMTs arrived and treated him, they told him that, had he not been wearing a helmet, he might have had severe injuries  - or worse.

Most of the kids I see riding bikes to school are not wearing helmets.

I have been told by my lawyer friends that a homeowner would not be liable for actions of the student driver using their driveway. That doesn’t matter to me. If a child who was parking on my driveway hurt someone  - or worse – I would be very upset. I might not be legally liable, but I might see myself as at least partially responsible.

Kids make poor choices. Good and smart kids make mistakes. New drivers do dangerous things, not because they are foolhardy (although some are) but because they don’t know better.

There is no ignominy in taking the bus. Time with your child in the car (and their friends) is time to talk and get the news. It may be less convenient, but it is safer and healthier.

To my neighbors: please take these ideas into consideration if you are thinking about letting students park at your home. Please don’t sell out our safety. To parents: the way your child gets to school is more than a matter of convenience and affects more than just your child.

Little Camera is Watching

Recently, I purchase a dash-cam. I bought it because I had several near accidents with vehicles running red lights and stop signs, and because I was curious – and because it was on sale. It was easy to install and I have only twice looked at any of the videos that it has recorded. For the most part, I forget about it while I am driving. I remember it, however, when I see poor driving.

I think about how my driving is being captured on other people’s dash-cams. While this has changed my driving and, for the most part, I consider myself a conservative and safe driver, I wonder if people would drive differently if they thought that recordings of their driving might turn up online, at the police department, or in other ways. Would some of us slow down?  Would some of us put on a show?

Google introduced Google Glass in 2013 and more recently Google Clip. Both are, for lack of a better term, person cams. They serve the same basic function as my dash-cam, but for human beings. They are a civilian version of the body cams that some police wear.

As you move through your day, people with whom you interact might be recording everything you do and say. The ubiquity of cell phones has that potential as well. Does that change anything?

Let’s try a thought experiment: what if people at your work were recording you? What if, as you dealt with co-workers, clients, customers, and others, someone was secretly recording? How would that affect you? Would it change your behavior?

There are two questions here: one is obvious: how would the chance of being recorded affect one’s behavior? The second is what happens to that recording?

We act differently when there is a camera watching us. Our awareness that our actions will be seen by others, be more “permanent, ” and perhaps be critiqued makes us self-conscious. Our audience changes from known to unknown.

In the world of George Orwell’s 1984, Big Brother looked into the lives of his citizens through a kind of television set. Privacy was almost impossible. The state watched, judged, and punished. While we have no centralized eye in the sky, the idea that an audience is viewing what you are doing in your car, job, or anywhere is unnerving and increasingly likely.

The obvious retort is that, if you have nothing to hide, what is the big deal? Who cares if my actions go viral on Twitter? While there is value in this debate, it is moot. Video of people from cameras meant for security and all manner of personal cams are now out there. It doesn’t matter if you are behaving well or not. The world may see you and that, by itself may be a punishment.

Because the audience may not have context for your actions. The world may not know what your co-worker said to you just a few minutes before you lost your temper. The world may not see the crying person just off the screen. The world may only see the bad lane change, but may not the sick child in the backseat.

Pulling out your cell phone to record an incident is a way to both deescalate and intensify a situation. If you are going to cut in line, I am going to record you doing it and post it. You parked badly; I am going to shame you online. Just like in 1984, fear and shaming do not make a caring community. They do keep people in line.

So how do we deal with the proliferation of cameras and the recordings they produce? First, we increase our civility in public. There is nothing wrong with that. Beating people is wrong regardless of context. Second, we increase our awareness of the presence of cameras. We point them out and notice them wherever we are. If we are being watched, we should be aware of it. Third, we ask questions. Why are cameras here? Who sees the recordings? What is done with those recordings? Who has access to them and for what purposes? We add context wherever possible. If a camera appears, I may need to explain what is going on in more detail. I may need to directly address the camera. I need to think about my new audiences.

I never want to be on a reality TV show, but now we all may have our fifteen minutes of shame and blame. The camera genie is not going back into the bottle. But we must remember that the view into the bottle is often incomplete.

Van...Gone

I was relieved and embarrassed when I confessed to some friends that I felt very sad when I sold my minivan. It is a thing, not a person. Why would I get choked up when I turned over the keys, took off the license plates, and created an open spot in the driveway? I have never been bothered by getting rid of a vehicle before.

The van’s presence on the driveway was a sign of the development of our family. As my kids went to college and left the house, the van represented a time when we were together more often. We were busy, and we were all in that van.

I was also relieved because several friends said that they, too, grieved when they ended their relationships with their vans. Their vans represented the same things to them. They had shuttled their kids, took road trips, and journeyed to summer camps. For many of us, our vans were as old or older than our children. We had all grown up in the van!

But my van was different. My van was a Star Trek shuttlecraft. It was one of a kind, down to the double entendre license plate. It became an extension of my identity in a way. In retrospect, I wonder if that was healthy.

I was always shocked that my students knew about the van because I didn’t drive it to school! It didn’t matter. People in the community knew the van and recognized it. Weekly, I would run into someone in a store who would say some variation on, “I was looking for you. I saw the van in the lot, so I knew you were here.”

It was fun, funny, and sometimes odd when we came outside and found someone photographing the van. Everyone in the family could return a Vulcan salute from a passing vehicle on the highway. The van made people smile. It was a fun way to travel.

When I turned fifty years old, I bought a car; the van lost its spot in the garage and moved to the driveway. It became the “extra” car the kids drove or was used for special occasions. But it was still there. More than that, it was even more public since it was now in front of the house.

My children called it the “nerdmobile.” My brother thought kids at school would make fun of my children because of it. If that happened, I never heard about it. In fact, the kids had a sweet fondness for the van. It was a kind of member of the family. It was like a symbol of both my fatherhood and fandom. It was our presence on the road.

And now it is gone.

I procrastinated in both preparing to sell it and then actually making the sale. Logically, it was time. It needed repairs that we could not justify given how infrequently it was used.

But vans don’t live on logic alone.

I created an ad and, when no fans stepped forward to purchase it, I decided to make the break quick and clean and sold it to Carmax. On the way home, I was wondering if I had made the right choice. My wife had an evening meeting and I moped and grieved the rest of the night, alone in the house.

Just to be clear: my current car has no decorations. I have no plans for another Star Trek vehicle. I moved some pieces of the van into my car. I will eventually put its plates on the wall of the garage.

I wasn’t certain that I could – or should – write about selling the van. It felt silly and trivial. I was relieved and grateful when others shared their stories. It was heartening and reassuring when I posted about the van’s sale on Facebook and people understood what I was feeling.

It is odd to come home to an empty driveway. It is odd to come home to a house with no children. I am very slowly getting used to both. I will miss the van and all it represents. More than that, I miss the people it shuttled and schlepped.

Waiting for the Van to Go

With the impending arrival of our second child, my wife and I decided that we needed a larger vehicle. We needed to be able to schlep kids, grandparents, strollers,  and lots of other stuff. So we became yet another suburban minivan family.

Long before a minivan was in our future, my wife had agreed that, should we ever get one, I could decorate it as a Star Trek style shuttlecraft. We did and, when they got older, my kids called it the nerdmobile. I loved my unique vehicle and the adventures we had in it!  

Our first van lasted about seven years. The second one is in its fourteenth year.  I drove car pools, took kids to and from overnight camp, went on road trips, and moved furniture, bikes, and everything in-between.

When I turned fifty, I bought myself a car and the van lost its place in the garage. It sits on the driveway. By that point, our younger child was driving, so it was convenient to have a third car. He could not get away with poor driving because everyone in our community recognized our special van!

Today, the van is parked in the driveway and is rarely driven. It got a few weeks of use when that younger child came home. We used it to take him to college. My wife used it when she took a few of her friends to Wisconsin. But most of the time, it sits there, waiting.

It waits for an occasion. It waits to be full of loud laughter again.  It waits for another carpool or baseball game. It waits for the kids to come home. Me, too.

And that may be why I am so reluctant to let it go. Selling the van means facing the fact that those days are over.  Of course, I have had to pay a lot of money to fix it when things go wrong. Older cars are much like older people; they need repairs regularly.

Yet, that isn’t the key issue. Although I would love to say I am hanging on to it because it is a special decorated Star Trek car, that isn’t the truth either. Selling the van is the end of an era. It says that the nest is empty. It says that the kids really live elsewhere. It says that our family’s childhood is over and it is time to move on.

It is, and I have such mixed feelings about that.  

I rationalize the issue: even though we don’t drive the van much, it is nice to have a third vehicle when the kids are here. When one of the cars is in the shop, it is great to have a spare. Several friends have needed it. I use the van to take my Sunday school kids on field trips a few times a year. See, I need a van! I really do!

This summer, both kids came in for a visit. My folks joined us and we took the whole troupe downtown for a play and dinner. Once again, we rode together in the van. It was our family room on wheels again, possibly for the last time.

That is the truth the van’s presence in the driveway obscures. There are fewer and fewer times that the entire clan is together. There are no more car pools or school dances. No teams or casts or friend groups need a ride to the party. I haven’t been a minivan dad for a long time.

I enjoy driving my car. It has some fancy features that were not available when I bought the van. My son prefers driving the “new” car to the van. It has a great sound system, he says.

So I am researching selling the van. It will seek new worlds, and so will we. All of us will boldly go where we have not gone before: the next stage of development for our little family.

A Bad Pick Up Line

I walk to school. When I arrive in the morning, a steady stream of cars drop off kids for early class, meetings with teachers, and other activities. When I leave in the afternoon, the line of cars is so long that it encircles the parking lot. Parents will sit in their car for a half hour or more waiting for their children to come out.

I am baffled. Why are they there? Why are they picking up their children as soon as school lets out?

The line is long at 3:15. The line disappears by 3:30 or 3:35. Why sit and wait that long? For that matter, why not let your child take the bus, walk, or ride a bike home?

Of course, sometimes there is a doctor appointment, skating lesson, or other obligation. But the number of cars waiting at the end of the day is far too many for those kind of periodic tasks.

Our school has over ninety clubs and sixty sports. Some of these require auditions or try outs, but a vast majority of them are open to all students. A handful meet in the morning before school starts, but a most activities and teams meet between 3:15 and 6pm after the class day has ended.

I want to knock on windows as I walk past the row of cars and ask, “Why are you here? Why are you picking up a child who should be able to find his or her own way home? Why isn’t your child involved after school?”

As a teacher of freshmen, I work hard to connect my students to our school’s co-curricular program of activities and athletics. Although there are no grades or transcripts for what happens in the afternoon, for many of my students, and many of us, sports, performing arts, clubs, and other activities were the real reason we went to school. They were also where we learned lessons that we carried into adulthood. The people with whom we spent time after school became our closest friends.

This is what the students who leave school at 3:15 are losing. Do they know how much they are missing? Are their parents who facilitate their departure aware of this price?

Yes, yes, yes: I play a spring sport, so in the fall I go home and several times a week, I work out or play with a club. I have a job. I go to youth group. That’s great. I don’t believe that the enormous line of cars is filled, even partially filled with these kids. The line is way too long.

High school is about more than classes. For many kids, classes are the gateway to the fun and wonderful things that happen after the final bell rings and the real love of learning begins. To deprive a student of this opportunity, even under the guise of helping them get home, sparing them bus embarrassment, or making their life easier, is to deny them a key component of their development.

Don’t pick your kids up after school! Don’t make it easy to get home. Do help them find their after school home. Do push them to join a club, be on or backstage, play a sport, or help with the countless events that occur all afternoon and into the evening at most high schools.

One my favorite aphorisms from Robert Heinlein’s Time Enough For Love is “Don’t handicap your children by making their lives easy”. Here is my corollary: Don’t pick them up after school!

Let’s Hear It For The Nerdmobile!

Years before my family and I even considered a minivan, I had a great idea: What if I decorated a vehicle to look like one of the shuttlecrafts on Star Trek? I shared this idea with wife and, perhaps since we weren’t talking about actually buying one, she gave it a thumbs up. That was all I needed.

We didn’t need a minivan with one child: a sedan and a fun red sports car worked for our family. However, when child number two was on his way, we knew that we’d need more space. Since space is the final frontier, it was time for my idea to be a reality. It was time to trade my bachelor sports car in for the ultimate symbol of parenting: a minivan.

When people ask me why I turned my minivan into a Star Trek shuttlecraft, I tell them that, if I was going to be a minivan dad, I was going to own a vehicle worth driving. It would a fun expression of my love of Star Trek and the fact that I was now a parent schlepper shuttling my kids around town. 

The first “shuttlecraft” was a gray 1997 Oldsmobile Silhouette. I debated whether it should be white or gray. My wife pointed out that a white van with red stripes would look like an ambulance. Besides, my model shuttlecraft was gray. So I went to a sign shop and asked them to make my van look just like it. They did a great job! I drove the first shuttle Galileo for about seven years before replacing it with the van I have been driving for ten years in April.

And now I am facing the end of that era: I am about to replace my minivan with a car, a sedan. Now that my younger child is about to get his drivers license, I am finally considering purchasing a car to replace what my elder child affectionately calls the “nerdmobile.” My minivan days are coming to an end.

Our minivan has, in many respects, been like everyone else’s: It has been in the elementary school pick up line, the high school parking lot, and done a ton of car pooling. It has been to sports games, rehearsals, and field trips. It has taken dozens of Sunday school students to churches, temples, mosques, mandirs, and other houses of worships. It lets us take grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, neighbors, and friends with us! It goes back and forth from summer camp every year.

However, there are aspects to our minivan that most parents will never experience. Do people often photograph your car? Do you come out of stores to find people gathered around it? Do people flash you the Vulcan salute on the highway? How many notes have been left on your minivans that were not about car accidents?

In our community, the van is our on-the-road signature. When we are further afield, it is our connection to the wonderful science fiction and Star Trek fan community. We are never anonymous on the road. While this may have some obvious downsides, it has also means that my elder child, when driving her father’s “nerdmobile” knew that she would be held accountable for her choices on the road – and her father would be, too.

The van isn’t going away immediately. For the short term, we’ll keep it as a third car. But its days are numbered. We’re not pushing strollers, carrying diaper bags, or signing up for carpools any more. We don’t move bikes, sports equipment, or double basses any more. A sedan will be just fine for our needs.

Yet, I will miss the “Enterprise” as others call it. If you drive a minivan, you know that it is a little house on wheels. It is where the kids will talk and reveal their concerns and feelings. It is where their friends will forget there is an adult at the helm and let a dad eavesdrop on their adolescent concerns. It held the entire family when the entire family was in one place. That doesn’t happen much any more.

We boldly went where no minivan had gone before. That journey is coming to an end. A new one is beginning. We had the shuttle. We had the shuttle’s next generation. Now it is time to go explore new vehicles and new stages of life. Something tells me that I am going to miss the nerdmobile and the young family it transported.