E.S.P.
Time..2.30 am
Location…Country road, England
Conditions…mild, dry, clear sky
A while ago I was driving my car at 60 miles an hour down a long straight two way road. It was 2.30 in the morning and there was no other traffic. The roads were dry. There was a low wall on my side of the road with bushes behind it and no pavement but a pavement on the other side of the road. No other cars, no pedestrians, straight road, music on, cruise control on, what harm could I do? What could possibly go wrong.
Then, from behind the wall, a cat jumped into the road directly in front of the car.
It landed only feet away, almost in the line of my site down the bonnet. So many things went through my mind at that moment; it was a fluffy cat, very long fine hair – probably a bit of pedigree in there somewhere, and how it ducked its head as it landed, how it crouched, coiled, its intense expression and how its eyes were locked on the car – ah yes, Persian, and in my mind I screamed “Don’t run, please don’t run”
My own cat had been knocked over and killed two weeks earlier and the tragic irony came to me in that moment as well. That day I had cursed people that drive fast and the fact that cats, or any animals for that matter and roads just don’t go together. I thought how unfair it was that I would now be taking some other family’s pet away from them; that they would have to feel, and go through, what I had. That single instant going on and on.
And while that was going through my mind I swung the wheel over, hard.
I don’t know if you have ever crashed a car before, (I have) but there is an awful moment when you think, “Mayday Mayday Mayday we’re going in”. It’s at the moment when you realise crashing is inevitable. It is not a nice feeling. Your brain, in truly enigmatic style, allows you another endless instant to consider all sorts of things; car repair bills, cats, insurance premiums, brick walls, blue lights, police radio chatter, and usually lots of bad words, and then there is usually a very loud and expensive bang.
And sometimes the lights go out.
“Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, We’re going in”
I’ve had this car for a while now. I’ve never taken much notice of the so called safety features but it is my first car with traction control, and a.b.s. and whatever else it has. I never really appreciated what in reality these mean though. I understood what they are meant to do (sometimes) but only in a fairly vague sort of way. They all seem to come from brainy Germans, and I always considered them sort of gimmicks. Things you’d never really be able to tell if they did anything or not – especially as I didn’t plan to crash ever. They just don’t do anything obvious, rather like a parachute; mostly it just sits there, and that’s a good analogy actually because same as a parachute they do just sit there, until that one time when you really, really need them.
So, cat jumps in front of car, I swerve very hard before I’ve even thought about it, and now the car is going sideways, veering toward the other side of the road, I’m wrestling with the steering trying to correct the spin, and it flicks and spins the other way, back towards the wall. This happens so fast I don’t think my mind was keeping up, but as it flicked back to the left I thought; “this is it, I am definitely going in”.
At the same time I also became aware of all the sounds the car was making, like the sound of road drills coming from all around me in Dolby surround sound. As the car spun first one way then the other, the noise was switching from corner to corner around me, front left, back right, back left, and way too fast for me to figure it out, until suddenly as the wall and trees were looming, the car just straightened out as if a great hand had steadied it and I was driving straight and level again. All be it on the other side of the road. It was over in a second.
I stopped, badly shaken, trying to figure out what had happened. I could have wept with relief. It had been the ABS - anti lock braking, and possibly something to do with the traction control, but whatever it was it had saved me from something probably very bad. I have never been so impressed. I knew the car had been out of control, and I knew I was going to crash, and to feel it all be pulled back into order was extraordinary. I was in awe. I still am. I feel like I owe that car something.
I looked back down the road, and thankfully couldn’t see any little shapes lying there. I gingerly reversed back and parked, got out and sat on the wall and lit, with shaking hands a cigarette. I looked over and the cat appeared on the wall a few feet away, looking at me suspiciously. Perfectly happy by the looks of him, the little bastard. I went over and gave him a stroke, and told him how lucky he was. He was part Persian – I’d been right about that, and quite friendly, and none the worse apart from perhaps being minus one life.
So, when you are buying your next car, and the salesman says it has A.B.S. and E.S.P. or A.F.U. or any other bizarre acronym for something that may just sit there and hopefully never need to do anything, make sure you say yes and ask him to tell you just what they do. It is systems like these that truly demonstrate the benefit and development of modern technology in cars. They really make a difference, though hopefully you will never need to use them. Very much like a parachute.
