A Marriage In Traction

My wife and I are having another one of those silly arguments.

As usual, the topic itself isn’t very important, but being proven right will result in eternal validation of my soul and my identity.

So, I’m going to write a column articulating my point of view. That way, I can show it to her and say, “See? Even this guy in the newspaper agrees with me.”

It all started when we were trying to decide whether or not to venture out during a snowstorm. My wife said she wished we still had our Honda CR-V.

Like most Americans, she feels safer driving a big, four-wheel-drive SUV in the snow.

I say our little two-wheel drive Civic is just as safe, if not safer.

(Of course, the safest vehicles have snow tires, electronic stability control, anti-lock brakes, heat-seeking missiles, etc. But who has the time or money to keep changing tires or warheads every season of the year? So this debate eschews those options.)

I admit, my position is a bit unorthodox. But that doesn’t make it wrong.

To borrow an underused metaphor: anxiety about winter driving conditions is a virus. This virus has clogged the nasal passages of common sense. To alleviate the pressure, you have taken the Sudafed of misunderstanding. You feel better, but the medicine actually hinders your body’s natural defenses. Only the chicken soup of logic will finally restore your health.

So please, hear me out:

Sure, the four-wheel-drive gives you better traction when accelerating. But accelerating is rarely a safety concern, unless you’re trying to outrun something, like a snowplow whose driver has gone crazy from 84 hours without sleep.

Winter weather accidents result from sliding in an undesirable direction when stopping or steering, and the four-wheel-drive won’t help you in those departments.

In fact, a heavier vehicle requires more stopping distance. All else being equal, you can halt your momentum more quickly in a small car than you can in a large one.

If you’re worried about getting stuck, I suppose something with four-wheel-drive is a better choice. But getting stuck isn’t really a safety concern, unless you’re too far away from civilization to get help.

My wife may long for the traction our old car had, but not sliding at all on slippery roads creates a false sense of confidence. If the road doesn’t feel slippery, you become less cautious and attentive to your speed.

This is why, during a typical snowstorm, most of the vehicles you see off the road (at least those not driven by the young and the reckless) are four-wheel-drive pickups whose owners thought they were so high and mighty that they were immune to all the basic laws of physics.

I say it’s better to have a sense of what your real stopping and steering capabilities are, based on the overall handling of the car.

Anyway, I haven’t managed to make a lot of traction with my wife on this issue, so it would be great if everyone reading this could email me about how right I am.

Some of you loyal readers (Mom?) might remember the last time I disagreed with my wife on a vehicular issue; I ended up a humiliated victim on NPR’s “Car Talk.”

I could use a little redemption, ideally before she makes the appointment to get those missiles installed.

National Public Humiliation

I think enough time has passed for me to reveal how I was humiliated and insulted on National Public Radio.

Until a few months ago, I was a loyal NPR listener, enjoying such programs as A Prairie Home Companion, Elitist Intellectuals Discuss Jazz, and Bach’s Bowels.

I even pledged money one year, only to find out they don’t accept coin rolls.

But ever since I called in to Car Talk, my support for public radio has crumbled away like the bed of a 1986 Toyota pickup.

Car Talk, if you’re not familiar, is a hilarious program consisting of two brothers, “Click” and “Clack,” who dispense auto repair advice to Volvo or Honda-driving callers from Oregon and Massachusetts. Once in a while, someone calls in from North Carolina with a question about a 1974 El Camino, and the boys tell him to “sell it.”

People routinely call the program to settle marital disputes about driving. I fell into that category. As every sane person knows, you’re supposed to leave the button on the hand brake alone, so the brake makes that “click-click-click” sound as you pull it up. My wife, automobile heathen that she is, presses the button in so it makes no noise.

Furthermore, she refuses to recognize that I, as the carrier of our family’s lone y-chromosome and a former driving instructor, have superior automobile knowledge and should be trusted on such issues.

(One of my wife’s most annoying qualities is her refusal to respect “expert” opinions without heavy scrutiny if they don’t make sense in her own head. Since when were women allowed to think independently, anyway?)

So I called 1-888-CAR-TALK and left a message. The producer, smelling blood, called me back, and I participated in a recording of the show.

Needless to say, “Click” and “Clack” did not share my opinion about the emergency brake. In fact, they went so far as to declare, “Chuck, Chuck, you’ve got your head up your keister.”

(Just so you know, “keister” was not the word originally used; good thing it’s not a live show).

“The Tappet Brothers” insisted that whether you hold the button on your hand brake or not makes virtually no difference to any sane person. I remain skeptical. They were probably just providing whatever answer had the most entertainment value, looking for any opportunity to tell a listener that his noggin was lodged inside his most cherished personal orifice.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, NPR had to re-broadcast the segment a few weeks ago during their pledge-drive, complete with my weak attempts at humor, and, later, my sad and pathetic pleas for them to stop dismembering my ego.

My wife, of course, remains gleeful. She could be on the worst PMS-fueled, raging migraine rampage of her life, and I just have to mention the words “Car Talk” and she breaks into a broad smile and repeats the taunt, “Chuck, Chuck, you’ve got your head up your keister.”

Our two-year-old has even started repeating it.

I’m glad I can bring so much joy to my family.