Beware of cars going down the road without drivers!

                                                                      By Dave Hamby

              I almost got in a wreck the other day.   I was in a construction zone, passing a little VW that looked like it didn’t have a driver, when it decided it wanted to be in the lane I was occupying.   I jammed on my brakes, prayed the guy tailgating me was paying attention, got as close to the center divider as I could and tootled my horn vigorously.

              All of these actions had no effect on the little Volkswagen.   I’m guessing the driver was a contortionist and he (she?) had his (her?) head in such a position that the “blaaat” coming from my horn was muffled by the seat bottom.

             Back when I owned a body shop I used to enjoy seeing drivers like this with their hear up their..... Now that I'm no longer in the repair business I want to warn everyone about cars like this that appear to be unpiloted as they go down the road.

              Now I’m not talking about short or vertically challenged people here.   I like short folks.    My mom is only about 5’2” and my favorite Aunt Gertie has only seen above 5 foot when she’s been on a footstool or a ladder.   Some of my best friends can be described as short.   I’m not going to mention any names.   I can think of one fellow writer in particular who’ll stand on her tiptoes and give me a black eye if I do.   These people compensate by scooting their seat up and sometimes even by putting a pillow under their butt so they can see something other than the instrument panel and blue sky.

              No, I’m referring to the young people, gangstas and rappahs and such, who drive around with their seatback reclined so far that all you can see is the tops of their heads.   These are the folks who scare me.

              I don’t know when it became cool to drive around like this.   I had a cousin who did this in the seventies, but that was only because the seatback on his old jalopy was broken.

              I’m guessing this evolved from the hip dudes who used to drive around leaning so far to the right that it looked like the car only had a short passenger in it.   I used to think these cats did this so their “do’s” wouldn’t get messed up by the headliner that was sagging around their ears.   I realized this wasn’t the case only after I began to notice them doing this in cars with perfectly good headliners.

              I had a car like that.   It was only four or five years old when the headliner began to droop.   It seemed like every time I’d hit a bump it would get a little lower.   A lady friend of mine suggested I get some chrome thumbtacks and tack the fabric back in place.   A couple of packages of thumbtacks and a couple of hours of work later I had a pleat job that was the envy of any customizer.   That was at least until one dark, humid night when I climbed into my car only to discover a few of the thumbtacks had fallen out. That next day with an aching butt I put a new headliner in.

              I’m not sure why these folks drive around crouched down so low.   Maybe their air conditioning is weak and this is the only way they can catch a cool breeze on their face.   Perhaps they’re making a statement.   If that’s the case I’ve got a pretty good idea what that statement is.   It’s “Get out of my way, I can’t see where I’m going!”   It’s even possible they feel like they’ve been persecuted by the police and they drive around hiding on the floorboards so the cops won’t spot them.

              At any rate, it’s a good idea to avoid these drivers whenever possible.   They’re not going to see you unless you’re driving a semi and    they’re sure as heck not going to hear your horn over the “thump, thump, thump” coming out of their stereos.

This article originally appeared in the Round Rock Leader.   It is available for reprint.