The As It Happens Files Page 10

  ML: Did the honking stop?

  AN: Didn’t solve the problem.

  ML: Oh.

  AN: Two weeks later I went out and posted a second honku.

  ML: Anad this said … ?

  AN: Oh, forget Enron.

  The problem around here

  is all the damn honking.

  And then, a couple of weeks later, I go out to post my third one and … First of all, the very first one I started taping up, this woman walked by and she’s like, “Ah. You’re the Poet of Clinton Street. I love your work!”

  And I was like, Okay, that was interesting. That’s kinda cool. And then I started walking down the street and posting more, and I noticed that other people had started posting their own on lampposts, you know. And they were copying the format and they were like, “Honku Number 3”—and there were a lot of them!

  ML: Isn’t New York wonderful!

  AN: It is wonderful.

  ML: Has the honking problem abated at all?

  AN: Not at all. The one result, we were able to get the police out here—there’s a sign right on the corner that says “No Honking. Penalty $125.” The cops came out and enforced it for one day.

  ML: Did they. Is there a fine for putting honku on lampposts?

  AN: Yeah, I discovered there is.

  ML: Uh-oh.

  AN: And I was pulled over by the police as well.

  ML: You were pulled over?

  AN: I was, I was. I was stopped from posting honkus a couple of weeks ago and, uh, I don’t remember what the specific fine was but I remember I tallied it up, and if I posted 50 poems, each poem could get fined five times in the course of a day, and it came out to $10,000. So I could be fined a maximum of $10,000 a day for posting 50 honkus on lampposts.

  ML: And the fine for honking is $100?

  AN: $125. It never gets enforced.

  ML: Dear me.

  Odds are it’s not much quieter on that street in Brooklyn today, especially in the lead-up to Christmas, but in the wake of that conversation with Aaron Naparstek, we all had a nice time making up our own little verses about rude drivers, stupid SUVs and the like.

  The honking won’t stop

  but it’s not trucks, vans or cars.

  Damned Canada geese!

  —Cindy Sears, D.C. suburb

  You’ll wake the baby

  with random night-time honking.

  Patience is hard-earned.

  —Steve from North Bay, Ontario

  Rural Alberta:

  moose, gravel and chipped glass—

  What is a horn for?

  —Peter MacKay, Fairview, Alberta

  Take a lesson from

  quiet town in New Jersey:

  slow down and stay home.

  —Barbara Jones Warwick, London, Ontario

  On this Yukon road

  only the moose are horny;

  blaring antler’d bulls.

  —Rod Jacob, Whitehorse, Yukon

  Finally, we heard from Michael Lee in Halifax, Nova Scotia, who said he played in a band, and when they were talking about the show and the honku story, the band members had suddenly realized that every verse of the song “Moonlight in Vermont” was, in fact, a haiku. I didn’t know that, did you? But look—he’s right!

  Pennies in a stream,

  rippling leaves, a sycamore—

  Moonlight in Vermont.

  “Wasn’t that peaceful?” asked Michael Lee. Peaceful, yes—and so different from the noisy, blaring street in Brooklyn that was the genesis of all this creative writing and thinking. I guess you just never know where or how inspiration will strike.

  A year later, Villard Books published Aaron Naparstek’s Honku: The Zen Antidote to Road Rage, a collection of poems on an automotive theme, and Aaron was kind enough to mention Barbara Budd and me in the Acknowledgments.

  TEN

  Runaway Chevy

  Road-tested radio

  How’s this for a honku?

  Honking runaway

  Chevy truck, out of control

  on the L.I.E.

  That could have been Elizabeth Jordan’s contribution to Aaron Naparstek’s collection after a really scary ride she had one morning in May 2002 on the LIE (Long Island Expressway). We first heard about it in the office when As It Happens producer Mark Ulster played us the tape recorded by the 911 emergency dispatcher when Ms. Jordan called in on her cellphone.

  EJ: I’m on the LIE and I’ve lost my brakes and I can’t stop.

  DP: Eastbound or westbound?

  EJ: I’m going westbound.

  DP: What kind of vehicle are you in?

  EJ: I’m in a black Blazer, ’94, four-door—it’s an older style. I have my emergency brake on. I tried to go into Neutral. Should I try to get it into Park?

  DP: Uh, I don’t know, ma’am. I can’t advise you on that. Um …

  EJ: I—I’m pressing on my brakes and I just can’t stop.

  DP: Are you pumping the brakes?

  EJ: I’m pumping the brakes. I mean it slowed it a tiny, tiny bit. I’m going about 40 right now.

  DP: Okay. Are you in the right lane?

  EJ: No, I’m in the left lane right now. Should I move over or stay put?

  DP: Well, you don’t want to stop in the left lane if you stop. Can you try to get over? … How you makin’ out?

  EJ: It’s not stopping. If I hold my foot really hard on the brake, it slows down, but even with the e-brake, it’s not stopping. I can smell my brakes going. Should I take it off the brake, see what happens? …

  DP: Are you—you should be coming to that uphill section soon?

  EJ: I just went up a teeny hill. I’m going to … the shoulder—

  DP: [to someone else] She’s going to go for the shoulder.

  EJ: … because I can’t stop! [very heavy breathing heard]

  DP: Ma’am, don’t breathe like that. You’ll hyperventilate.

  EJ: I know. I know. I know.

  DP: Don’t want you hyperventilating. [horn blast]

  EJ: Oh my god!

  DP: You’ve got it in Neutral, right?

  EJ: No. Shall I put it into Neutral? Shall I try that?

  DP: Will you downshift it?

  EJ: You mean—downshift it into what? I’m a female, sorry. [panting now]

  DP: You have a second gear?

  EJ: Yeah.

  DP: Try downshifting it into Second.

  EJ: Nothing.

  DP: Nothing. Where are you now, hon?

  EJ: I’m coming up to [incomprehensible] … and the traffic is stopped ahead again.

  DP: Are you still on the right shoulder?

  EJ: No, I’m not. I’m in the traffic lane.

  DP: There should be a police officer right up ahead.

  EJ: Yes, I think I see him. [horn beeping steadily]

  DP: What lane are you in, ma’am?

  EJ: I’m on the shoulder and the right lane. And there are cars in front of me and I’m going to hit them! I’m going to hit someone!

  Our hearts were in our mouths as we listened to this, I can tell you. Amazingly, Elizabeth Jordan survived, and a couple of days later, she came on the radio to tell us all about it.

  ML: Ms. Jordan, how are you today?

  EJ: Aah. Tired, frazzled. Still in shock.

  ML: You must be. What a hair-raising experience. Listening to the tape, my throat is constricted.

  EJ: Yeah.

  ML: Where were you—for us foreigners—where were you when you got into trouble?

  EJ: I was on the Long Island Expressway, around Exit 52, 53, somewhere in there—I’m not a hundred percent sure—and I was in the left-hand lane and I had just passed someone and all of a sudden my car sped up to 85 miles an hour—

  ML: It sped up!

  EJ: The speed limit there is 55, so I’m, Whoa, I’m going a little too fast here, and I applied the brakes and the brakes wouldn’t work. Tried it again, still didn’t work. I tried lifting the gas pedal, I put my foot underneath it, tr
ied pushing it up. Nothing worked. So I shifted into Neutral, and the engine made horrible sounds. I thought it was going to explode or something, so I went back into Drive, and I put my hazards on and decided to put the emergency brake on. The emergency brake went down like Jell-O, though. There was no resistance or anything, but it did slow me down to about 50, which was a manageable speed. And at that point, I knew … I wasn’t going to stop, and I picked up my cellphone and I called 911. I got a terrific operator, luckily.

  ML: You did, didn’t you?

  EJ: Yes, I did. Good thing. And she asked me, “Did I try this? Did I try that?” And we tried a couple of things together but nothing worked.

  At one point, I came to an overpass which cut into the roadway and made the lanes smaller, and the traffic was stopped underneath, and I said to her, “I’m going to hit someone.” But I happen to be an emergency medical technician here and I have a light that I use to respond to the ambulance—I turned my light on, hoping that someone would see it and get out of the way and I started honking my horn and there was a Jeep Cherokee and he got halfway out of the lane, just enough for me to squeeze by. I still don’t remember going through the underpass; I think I shut my eyes.

  ML: And then she said, “There’s a police car—the police car’s going to get in front of you and it’s going to slow you down. It’s okay if you hit him.”

  EJ: “Yep,” I said. “I see the police car.” …

  She said, “Just line up behind him, and it’s okay if you hit him.”

  And he sped up some to match my speed. Then he slowed down and we hit twice. He braked—he used his emergency brake—and after about a quarter of a mile, he was able to stop us.

  ML: You were pushing him along.

  EJ: Yes. And by the time we got out, my tires were all smoking and everything, and I was scared to death.

  ML: How did you keep from falling completely to pieces, I wonder.

  EJ: I think part of it was my training. Being an EMT for seven years … we’re supposed to keep our composure.

  ML: What happened when you got out of the car?

  EJ: I just started crying. And I was just, you know, I thanked him and thanked him and thanked him. I just started making phone calls, calling my friends, calling my family, saying, I love you. You know? And of course, they’re like, oh my god, are you okay? What happened?

  ML: Where’s your car now?

  EJ: It’s outside of my house.

  ML: Did you find out why all of that went wrong?

  EJ: Well, I’ve talked to some mechanics, and a mechanic who’s a friend of mine came and checked it. They feel that both the accelerator got stuck and the brakes wouldn’t work, so that it was twofold. And I’d just had my brakes done about three weeks ago, so we’re a little concerned about that.

  ML: What an experience.

  EJ: I’m just happy I didn’t get hurt and happy I didn’t have to hurt anyone.

  ML: Yeah, we’re happy, too. Thank you.

  It was a story we could all relate to, and with an outcome that made everyone feel good.

  Well, almost everyone. No sooner had we aired Elizabeth Jordan’s dramatic tale than folks were on the phone, on email, sending us their reactions to the runaway Chevy Blazer, and what most of them were saying was, “For heaven’s sake, why didn’t she just turn off the engine!”

  Most, but not all. Some were saying, “For heaven’s sake, why didn’t she put it into Neutral?”

  I guess they’d missed the part where Ms. Jordan said she’d tried that and her engine sounded as though it was going to explode. After we aired those reactions on Talkback, more people called to argue with the first callers. Some of these people worried that if you turned off your engine, your steering would lock, and then where would you be?

  The argument raged on, outside the CBC and in, because there is nothing like car talk for getting everyone involved. But no one had a definite answer to this question: how do you stop a runaway SUV?

  Mark decided we should put it to the experts, so he hit the phones and started calling around. First he called the police in Suffolk, Long Island. Did they know about the runaway 1994 Chevy Blazer? They did. And could they tell us, please, what should you do if your car is out of control like that?

  “That’s a good question,” they said. They’d get back to us after they’d finished reviewing the case.

  Next, he phoned Young Drivers of Canada and asked them what they would advise in a situation like this. Young Drivers said you should get the car into Neutral and then use your brakes.

  “She had no brakes,” said Mark. “Wow, that’s not very good.”

  Don McKnight of the Ontario Provincial Police said you should first take the power away by putting the car in Neutral, then turn the engine off. Don’t try to take the key out of the ignition, he said; just turn it back one notch. That way you’ll slow the car down and still have your steering.

  Bobby Ore, who trains police bodyguards and stunt drivers, agreed.

  “Turn the ignition back one position and/or put the car in Neutral,” he advised. Better for the engine to explode than to run into a telephone pole or another car.

  Brian Holmes of the Canadian Automobile Association said all you needed to do was turn the ignition off. You couldn’t remove the key anyway unless the car was in Park, and you couldn’t put it in Park if it was still moving. He also advised against trying to use the emergency brakes. Elizabeth had tried and they didn’t work, but Brian said if they had, she might have locked her back wheels and spun out of control.

  So the consensus seemed to be: first cut power to the engine. Even better: avoid getting into such a fix in the first place.

  Six years later, I tracked Elizabeth Jordan down again. She told me she’d got herself a nursing degree, got married and was working in obstetrics in New York. I asked her if they ever found out what went wrong with the Chevy Blazer. She said that, as far as she could remember, a piece of the air intake valve had got stuck in the throttle, probably when her car had been worked on a few days earlier. She was sorry to report that Edwin Hernandez, the police officer who’d saved her life, had since been killed in a car accident.

  By the way, Elizabeth Jordan was still driving a Chevy—basically the same as she had before, she said, but newer.

  Here’s another good little car story. It’s May 2005. Andreas Bolga of Cologne, Germany, is driving down the autobahn in his Smart Car (I told you it was a little car story) when a huge tractor trailer suddenly starts to move over into his lane … where he is. The truck driver does not see the little car that’s already occupying the space he’s trying to move into, nor does he notice anything when he hooks the car onto the front of his truck. He does sense an extra bit of drag, which he thinks might be a flat tire, so eventually he pulls over to the side of the road to have a look-see. To say that he was surprised when he saw what was causing the drag is, I gather, something of an understatement.

  Luckily, no one got hurt in that adventure either, although the little Smart Car was quite bent. Andreas said he was going to get it fixed up and keep it, though, because his Smart Car was now his Lucky Car.

  At As It Happens, we were pretty impressed with how Elizabeth Jordan and Andreas Bolga kept their heads in the bizarre and terrifying circumstances they found themselves in, but Mike Brady may have earned himself the title King of Cool when he and his wheels met with a mishap, and not only because the temperature was hovering around minus 22 degrees Celsius at the time.

  Mike, a basketball coach in Regina, was on his way home from visiting friends in Hodgeville, Saskatchewan, when the accident happened. He lost control of his van on a lonely country road around 10:00 p.m. just after Christmas 2002. He had no cellphone. And there was no question of getting out of the van and striking out on foot, because Mike Brady also happened to be in a wheelchair—he doesn’t have the use of his legs.

  How Mike managed to survive the next 41 hours is a story that rivals Ignacio Siberio’s and was the subject of
a conversation we had on the radio a couple of days later. First I wanted to know how come he hadn’t frozen to death.

  MB: I stayed with my van and I had half a tank of gas and I didn’t know how long I’d be there, so I ran the van every 2 hours for 15 minutes.

  ML: Warmed up the van a bit.

  MB: Just warmed me up. And I didn’t want to warm myself up too much, because then you start to sweat and that makes you colder. So I just got the chill off me, and I had my two dogs with me and one would lie on my thigh and she would keep warm herself—she’s a smaller dog; the other one’s a big fluffy Bouvier, and she was steaming the whole time and if I wanted to warm up my hands, I’d get her up on my lap and cuddle her and pet her and hold her, and she would warm me right up.

  ML: That was good. You had nothing to eat or drink?

  MB: I had two Christmas suckers that I had put in the pouch of my wheelchair to give to a couple of kids I know and I forgot to give them to them, so I had one for lunch on Monday and one for breakfast on Tuesday morning.

  ML: Oh gosh. Now, what was going through your mind?

  MB: Well, there’s a lot of stuff goes through your mind in a 41-hour period when you’re by yourself. There was one point where I wasn’t sure anyone would find me, because I didn’t know anyone knew I was missing. And when you know there’s a possibility that you may not make it through something … For me it was easy. I mean, I’ve had a life that’s been a fulfilling life, I’ve done some things that I’m really proud of and I just knew that if that was the time, then that was the time, and if my time wasn’t up, then someone would find me. I didn’t wait all the time in the van—

  ML: You didn’t?

  MB: I had made up my mind the night before that if they didn’t find me by one o’clock Tuesday afternoon, I was going to try to see how far I could wheel down the road. I had to dismantle my chair to get it out of the van, and I threw it out the door and got it back together. Then I warmed up and jumped in the chair about two o’clock and started to wheel back down the road the way I had come.

  ML: Is your wheelchair electric?