"Auto-Biography" -- Tyler Griffith and his 2002 Civic -- Don't forget that the Ohio State Patrol also uses aircraft!"

Tyler Griffith

Dr. Heitmann

HST 344

13 May 2010

My ’02 Civic

I got this car my senior year of high school after previously driving a beat up ’91 Honda Accord that gave up its transmission and was not worth repairing. When my parents were searching for a used car to replace it, my only stipulation was that no matter make or model, it had to be a stick shift. As a result of too many car movies and the influence of friends, I decided that driving a manual would just be more fun. As a result, I will probably never drive an automatic ever again, if I can help it.

I spent the rest of high school running around my small town and its country roads just outside of it, at speeds that would’ve easily had my license suspended had I ever been caught. In my own little world I thought I could beat anyone with my little four-banger engine. Even if I never would, I still loved to try. I prided myself on the fact that I had never been caught speeding and sped almost everywhere I went. I also later came to find out this style of driving kept me entertained and not wanting to fall asleep on longer road trips. I still have tendencies to drive above the speed limit out on country roads but my highway driving has been slowed tremendously by a recent event.

While driving home from visiting relatives in Canton, I was driving down I-77 on a sunny and dry Sunday afternoon. There was little to no traffic, and I wanted to get back to Dayton as soon as I could. While I would have been speeding regardless, I felt secure that I would not get pulled over because the traffic that was around me was going relatively the same speed. I set the cruise control for 80 mph. and relaxed. As I come over the top of the next hill, I saw red and blue lights of a cop car in the right berm ahead. I proceeded to get over to the left and slow down. As I am approaching, I realize its five or six police vehicles instead of just one. As I am about to drive by, one of the officers walks out into the lane beside me, points at me, and signals me to get over. I was quite confused because I was behind a line of cars at the time and there was no way they had clocked me before I had slowed down. Unfortunately, I came to find out that they had a plane in the air that had clocked me doing 80 as well as the 5 other people they had pulled over. There went my flawless driving record, all because of some cheap way of catching drivers speeding on the last day of the month. As a result, I am much more speed-cautious on the highways. My once invincible little car just cost me 150 dollars to the city of Tuscarawas and I don’t plan on paying another city any time soon.

As for the amount of love or hate that people give machines, it is all about how much we rely on those machines and how they perform when we need them. I cannot say that I love my current car, but when I invest money in a new car that I decide on, it would not be a stretch to imagine some sort of love for it. I think for me it is more of a pride in my car than love for it. As a result, I do not enjoy when other people drive my car because I do not trust other people to take care of it. I think these sorts of feelings are perfectly normal and fine as long as they do not consume your life. A person should have more feelings with other people than they do with machines. If that arrangement somehow becomes reversed I think it becomes a problem.