The Wrong Way

I remember the sunset in my office window on the final night of my career. I was thinking how thankful I was that a dirty blue-collar guy like myself had such a perfect view, that is, until the machine ended the day for me. It was attached to me. It tagged me like an animal. Back then if you wanted to drive your car, you had your phone’s GPS to tell you where to go, but if you wanted to drive a truck, the Electronic Logging Device told you where to go, where to eat, where to sleep, where to piss, and most importantly, how much money you were allowed to make. It was the beginning of my hatred towards Autonomous Vehicles, or AVs as they call it today. I had been trucking for a decade already. The freedom of the road is what attracted me to this kind of lifestyle, but as the years went on we were driving less and the trucks were driving more. I was driving down I-610, the loop, as we called it, when I got into the wreck.

I left the exit onto the main road towards my stop when there was a sports car going the wrong way. The bright light of the setting sun must have distracted the driver. I had just enough time to avoid a head on collision, but not enough time to keep control of my own vehicle. After a series of alarms I never heard before blared out of my dashboard the car slammed into my side and I turned over. I remember being held on by my seat belt with the asphalt against my window while I thought about my job and the embarrassment of wiping out and spilling my payload all over the highway. I was already in constant fear of losing my job and this accident would put me over for sure. Then I remembered thinking that if it wasn’t for this idiot I wouldn’t be here bathing in fear and anxiety. Those feelings quickly turned to rage.

The driver actually came out to check on me. He seemed uninjured and concerned for my well being. He asked if I was OK, and I started cursing him out about my payload before passing out. It was only when I woke up in an ambulance that I started thinking about my injuries. It turned out that I broke my right arm in several places. The surgery left a scar the shape of a long road, a tribute to that night. After they put the rod in my arm I had completely recovered within a few months, but that didn’t matter, the police report indicated that the car that ran me off the road was a new Tesla driving in autopilot. The all-powerful Elon Musk was on a pedestal in somebody’s eyes, because whatever they read in that report got me fired. After that I promised myself never to get into an autonomous vehicle.

A few months later I found myself living with my adult daughter. It was difficult for me to hold down a job. I didn't have proof but I was sure that I had been black listed from every trucking company in the country.

By 2021 I was able to become self-sufficient. My daughter had gotten married and I was trying my best to stay out of her new life. I disapproved at first, but her husband won me over with a Chevrolet El Camino. He allowed me to drive it and he told me, and I believed him, that I was the only one who was allowed to drive it besides himself. Not even his wife was allowed. As for my job, I drove for Uber and I was making good money, even during the pandemic. My new office was nice as well. This time it was inside of an early Prius. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was still pinned down by the same technology that was watching me in my old truck. My miles, routes, time, and customers' opinions were being tracked the same way, but at least I had the freedom to drive as much as I wanted. I never got into an accident in that car, but I was still laid off by 2027. Those driver-less cars were a nightmare, a plague on the nation and I stood by my promise to never enter one of them.

It was difficult to understand how somebody like me could get laid off by a company so dependent on the gig economy, but it turns out they washed the majority of people out in one legislative action. Their end game wasn’t about supplying a taxi service that worked well for drivers. It was all about data, food for the beast that was swallowing up the highways and side streets. I suspected it was the same for the trucking companies. There were a lot of companies like that at the time and they all lobbied the government to allow fully autonomous vehicles on the road. That level of technology had been around for decades and they just needed somebody in the white house to lead the way. The whole idea disgusted me.

I found myself fighting for driver’s rights for an entire year. I needed to be useful while I lived in a makeshift apartment in my daughter’s home in Houston. Thank God I had a supportive family. The long drives to DC reminded me of my old trucking days. In that group I felt young and useful again. There were veteran truckers, taxi drivers, school bus drivers, tow truck drivers, car enthusiasts, historians, journalists, limousine drivers, crane operators, food delivery drivers, forklift drivers, and even a lady who owned a company that sold child car seats. The long roads were wonderful and nostalgic, and we only turned on autopilot when we were mandated to do so in certain states. Our opposition and our naysayers told us that the world was changing for the better, but our reply was always, for who?

For me, the trip was cut short and I had to head back home. The kids were going to surprise me with news that I was going to be a grandfather, but it was overshadowed by my son-in-law’s hospitalization. He shared my love of cars and passion for driver’s rights. He was a good husband to my daughter, and would have been a good father as well. It took only a few weeks before he died of SARS.

My grandson was born in 2029. I became less involved in the group as I was getting older and my daughter needed help, especially now that she had been widowed. My first gift to the baby was a toy car, just a regular matchbox. You could see the drivers wheel on the inside. When he was old enough to walk, I was able to find one of those red and yellow cozy coupes for him. I was surprised they still made them, perhaps little tykes made them for folks like me. The joy on his face when he turned the steering wheel is a fond memory. Later that year I watched the election at home when I witnessed the president that helped pass legislation to allow AVs on the roads in full force get re-elected. I knew it was only a matter of time before human drivers would become illegal. I would not allow myself to support such disruptive technology. If the world continued like it did, my grandson would never know the feeling of controlling a car like his father's Chevy. We still had it and I had been doing maintenance on it out of respect for the boy’s late father.

2045 was the year the entire United States outlawed human drivers. Many states had already done this, but Texas was the last state to do so. My grandson was going to turn 16 and he had never driven a car. I had to get him on the road before it was too late.

The Chevy was calling us. It was his father’s car, and it was in peak condition regardless of its lack of use. It would be the first and only time he would be able to drive a car. I needed him to feel the purr of a gasoline engine and the weight of the brake pedal. Driving a car isn't supposed to be just going from point A to point B. It’s like mastering a mechanical beast. It was something in our blood that we needed to experience. Our ancestors took control of horses and rode them into battle with lances and bayonets. We’ve been reduced to where national leaders just press buttons to scare each other. I had hoped my grandson would feel more alive if he got the opportunity to drive at least once, and he did.

The highway was long and empty. My teenage grandson was at the wheel and there was no device in this beautiful vintage Chevy that allowed us to go autopilot. The joy on his face when he wrapped his hands around that freshly oiled leather wrapped steering wheel that was so alien to his generation was the same joy I saw when he jerked around in his Little Tikes red and yellow. We were driving a piece of history, driving it down I-610, the loop, as we used to call it. When we exited the highway in our beautiful sports car I saw the truck coming at us going the wrong way.

The accident happened quickly. The automated semi was able to turn in time to miss us completely but we had already lost control. I came out uninjured but my grandson was in bad shape. He was having trouble breathing so I knew something had pierced him somewhere. I found out later that it was the steering wheel itself that had broken his collarbone and crushed his rib. The safety and well-being of my grandchild was the first and only thought in my mind. There could be no anger except anger at myself. There were no other humans to stop by and check on us, except maybe the ambulance.

The automated medical vehicle rolled up seemingly instantaneously. The cameras on that road must have tipped them off and sent them after us as soon as the accident happened. The ambulance wasn’t something I was used to. The front had no room for a person, as it was self-driven, but there were two young people in the back ready to receive us. The man was able to use specialized tools to remove the door and bring my grandson onto a stretcher and a woman immediately started treating him. My grandson was barely conscious as I crawled out of the vehicle unharmed. The horror of my grandson entering the automated ambulance hit me like my first accident. I had no trust for the vehicle, even if it was actively saving my grandchild’s life. It was foreign to me and I was fearful. I was an old man living in the future watching the next generation ship off to a hospital by an unreliable robot car. I had fought for years to prevent this. I found myself pulling on the stretcher in desperation.

“My grandson is not going in that infernal machine!” I heard myself say it.

“Sir, your grandson needs immediate treatment. You have to let him go.” The woman spoke as humanly as possible. I remember every sympathetic wrinkle in her face, too many for how young she was.

“These AVs have ruined my life. He wouldn't have gotten hurt if it wasn't for those things! Get him a regular ambulance!”

“Sir, this is a regular ambulance. It's the fastest way to the hospital, please let go, we have a job to do.”

I let go as I tried to remember where I was. It was the same place as my first accident. I found myself on my side in my memories, cursing that Tesla for running me off the road, trying to cling on to the last of my identity as a trucker.

“That damned AV semi, it ran us off the road!"

"Are you riding with us sir? We should check you as well." The male EMT asked me as he held the door open with one hand and held out the other. I smacked it away.

"I hate AVs! I'll never get in one. Not then, not now!"

"Sir, we can't waste any more time, are you coming or not?"

"It was on the wrong side of the street! Can’t you see what they’ve done?” I cried out to the EMTs.

“Sir, you’re on the wrong side of the street.” He said to me in a tired voice. I looked around in realization. I was on the wrong side of the street, same place as before, same as the accident in '19.

"Last chance sir or we'll have to close the doors."

I was still trying to push the thought out of my head but another voice cracked through.

"Grandpa… Don't leave me alone…"

My response was as automatic as the highway itself. I threw away my hatred for AVs and got in one to keep my injured grandson company. The doors closed behind me by themselves. We were seated on benches and the glass front of the emergency AV gave me chills as I saw us, without bucket seats, without a steering wheel, without a dashboard even, racing down the street at unbelievable speed. It was a smooth ride as well. My grandson was trying to turn his head towards me with his new neck brace. The EMT was icing his injured shoulder and chest. The other EMT was checking my vitals. There were a few cars on the road that delayed moving for us, but most vehicles, the ones without drivers, automatically kept out of our way far ahead of my line of sight. We were 5 my minutes away from the hospital, AV time, normally 30 minutes if I had driven myself. The EMT turned to me, noticing my gray, dropped jaw.

"You know, the world is changing for the better."

The chants and talking points from my driver's rights days answered for me in a grumble. "Yes, but for who?"

He didn't answer. I looked down at my grandson who smiled back at me, and I knew he was going to be OK.