Hey Brother, Can You Spare a Ride?

He came out of nowhere. I was on Wilton Street, which travels North-South and straddles the neighborhoods of Hollywood and Beachwood. I was almost through the green light when it turned yellow, and a young man swerved in front of me from the opposite far right lane into a left turn. He was on the phone, both ears sporting those Apple ear plug/pod thingies. (I had a pair once. Lost them within three days. I am not cut out to keep track of that kind of equipment.)

At any rate, he was chatting away, eyes averted, and looked up just in time to see me slamming on the brakes, trying in vain to avoid colliding with him. He continued to chat into the air while I motioned for him to back up so we could get out of the intersection. He kept talking and made no effort. This meant I had to back up into on-coming traffic and swerve around him. I guess this finally jarred him out of his conversation, because he managed then to pull through the intersection and park on the next street. 

“Yellow means turn,” he said when he approached me. “Yellow is turn.” 

He was Hollywood handsome: a young man of about 28 years of age. English was clearly his second language, but he was skilled enough at it. He was pleasant, if a bit shaken, and remarkably unconcerned about my well-being. 

“No, yellow means yield,” I replied. “Yellow is yield. Are you okay?”

“Yes.”

“Me too. Let’s go see your car.”

I walked with him over to his car, and we exchanged information. My car was smashed in the front but did not look too bad. His car, a newer model with little or no metal in the chassis, looked pretty well mangled.

A man approached me with photos of the car’s positioning after the impact and offered them to me. I accepted, and shared them with my accident buddy. That is how his number is listed in my phone. It’s under accident. He could have told me his name a thousand times and I would have been too rattled to remember it, so the poor lad is nameless but for the moniker ‘Accident Guy’.

I proceeded on to meet my old friend and neighbor Rob for a lovely breakfast at a French café on Vermont Avenue. The neighborhood has not changed much in the nearly fifteen years since I lived there. House of Pies still does a bang-up business, and old stalwarts Palermo and Figaro and the very stylish Dresden Room are all thriving. 

“Make sure they check the radiator and everything behind the bumper. There can be hidden damage,” Rob said as I was leaving.

Rob is a car guy. Owned a car dealership for decades. He knows whereof he speaks. 

“I will for sure. Love you!”

“Drive safe.”

“Well, I will try. Yellow does not mean turn! Geez!!!”

I smiled and waved goodbye. My body was a bit sore the next day, but it was nothing a bath and some yoga could not take care of. Monday I reported the accident to his insurer, and uploaded photos and gave an accurate description of what had transpired. The fellow was very pleasant and did want to know how I was doing.

“I think I am okay.”

“Did the airbags engage?” he asked.

“No. I am a sixty-four-year-old woman. I was not speeding through the intersection. I was just trying to get to the other side. The light was green when I entered it, and had just turned yellow when the young man swerved in front of me.”

“Okay Ma’am. We will be in touch.”

It was all going fine for a while there. His insurance accepted responsibility for the accident and made an appointment for me at a nearby collision/body shop. 

I met the rental car agent at the body shop at the appointed hour. The attendant pulled my car into the parking lot, and I filled out the paperwork. The rental car guy was handing me the keys when the owner banged back into the lobby.

“I don’t want your car here. I don’t want to wait for parts. Go somewhere else. Your car is old. I don’t want to fix it,” he stated aggressively.

“Can you at least look at it and make sure it is safe for me to drive it?” I asked.

“No. I don’t have time for you. I’m sorry. Go somewhere else,” he replied gruffly.

“You are not sorry, so don’t say you are.”

“I am sorry.”

“No, you are not! You are not sorry!”

I looked at the rental car guy and rolled my eyes. 

“He’s a charmer,” I said after the owner walked back out to the lot.

“He’s got issues for sure,” he shrugged, and I gave him back the keys to the rental.

I had to wonder if the car being old was not the only ageism on display. After all, when I was young and pretty people tended to try to fix things for me (I’m still a looker in my way, but young and pretty, not so much). He had no interest in helping an older lady with an older car, and he made no bones about it. 

So, a new appointment was made at a different body shop a few days later, and photos were taken. The car was examined.

“Is it okay for me to keep driving it?” I asked.

“Think so. Should be fine,” was his reply. “They will call you.”

The next day I had a hair appointment with Bill Belsha, a great talent who works out of his home, which is cozy and welcoming. As I turned onto his street, I noticed black smoke emitting from the hood of my car. Great plumes of it were escaping by the time I pulled into his driveway.

“Sorry, Bill. I appear to be on fire or something,” I said as I got out of the vehicle. 

He looked at the car with no small amount of alarm. We decided to open the hood, which took some doing but Bill managed it.

“That’s as straight as I get,” he said. “Going to need some outside assistance from here on. I do hair.” 

Once the engine was off, the smoke began to dissipate. Things seemed safe enough at that point, so we decided to go ahead and start my hair.

“Speak to a representative. Speak to a representative,” I kept saying while we were waiting for the color to take.

“Speak to a representative.”  

I repeated it over and over to the automated voice from Geico that was offering everything and anything but the opportunity to speak to a human. 

“I’m begging you. Speak to a representative!”

Finally, the machine relented.

“Okay,” she said in her metallic robot voice. “You would like to speak to a representative. Is that right?”

Bill did a full spit-take from across the room.

“Yes! For the love of God! Yes!!!”

I was at last allowed to talk to a person, a nice young lady who went to great lengths to arrange to have my now non-drivable vehicle towed and make sure a rental car was ordered.

The predicted arrival time of two hours stretched to four as I waited and waited. Finally, the towing man appeared, and we headed back to my apartment. We managed to drive it long enough to park it in the garage, and I went on with arrangements for a rental. They picked me up and put me in a modest Nissan Sentra, which I thought would do just fine.

I went home and poured a much-needed glass of Chardonnay. I had a vehicle and, in the meantime, would take next steps to get my beloved Honda back on the road. My shoulders went down. “It’s only life,” I told myself.

The next morning, the rental car would not start and began issuing dire warnings on the dash. “Caution system failure. Caution system failure,” it read in giant yellow capital letters.

“Oh man … Seriously?” I thought.

Another tow truck was arranged, and I was sent by Uber to yet another rental car office.

“We don’t send Ubers for people,” the young man sneered at me, down the side of his nose.

“Well, they sent one for me because the car failed.”

“We don’t send Ubers for people.”

In desperation, I showed him the Uber instructions on my phone as well as the tow truck info.

“Oh,” he said flatly.

Thankfully, another man entered the office. He was older and taller, and willing to believe that I might just possibly know what I was talking about. A few calls were made, and before long I was once again situated in a Nissan Sentra, which he promised would start.

The next day, yet another tow truck would arrive and cart away my dear old Honda CRV. I waited hopefully to hear from the folks at Geico, but the news was not great. They declared my car a total loss. 

God dang it! I LOVED that car! God dang it!!!

I gave the rental back and refused the ride home. I have had it with vehicular mayhem.

“I’ll walk, thanks.”

For the month of May I am going to walk to as many destinations as possible, and will ride-share and cab it to the rest, and just see how that goes. I want to learn about LA transit, and I want to experience the city the way that so many people do who can’t or won’t drive.

I am enjoying making a list of what I think I will need:

• Fresh pepper spray to carry on my person (this is LA after all).

• A pull-wagon for hauling groceries. 

• Parasols for sun protection that won’t threaten to give me “hat hair” on my way to meetings.

• One more pair of orthotic sneakers ... maybe in a green or yellow, or perhaps pink? Some festive footwear is in order.

• A lightweight backpack.

• A sense of adventure.

Owning a car in Los Angeles is quite pricey. Registration, taxes, insurance, and gasoline are all at premium rates. The costs are double and triple those of many other states. Having a newish car here can run $700-800 a month on the low-low side. Despite this, there are–famously–too damned many of them on the road. 

How much will it cost for me to get around without one? Can a person live in Los Angeles without a vehicle of their own? 

Let’s find out.

On we go …