Reporting Aside: Wrong-way driving elicits angst

It might be a symptom of growing old, but I’m starting to think twice before doing something as simple as taking a drive.

The prospect of such a foray used to engender pleasant thoughts. Now, I have to wonder if it will be my last.

I recall being a little girl years ago and sitting in the back seat of our big car as my father drove on winding, curvy roads. From my perspective, barely able to see over the front seat, it seemed we were driving too close to the median and might strike vehicles approaching from the opposite direction.

Though it was probably not the case then, in 2023 we must worry about motorists driving on the interstate in the wrong direction, causing serious crashes.

Imagine driving along at night in the northbound lane of Interstate 95 and seeing headlights coming at you, but not from the southbound lane where they should be.

“Maybe we shouldn’t drive on divided highways anymore,” my husband, Phil, said.

We were on the road and having a discussion about the dangers of driving after yet another motorist suspected of being impaired caused a crash while driving in the wrong direction of I-95.

“Maybe we shouldn’t drive at night,” I wondered aloud. “At least in the daytime we can see better and have more time to react.”

The report of the wrong-way crash wouldn’t have scared us had it been an anomaly, but it seems to be occurring more frequently now. More drivers are on the roads, and who knows which ones are impaired.

“It could be someone in that car, or that,” Phil said, as cars passed us, head-on, on secondary roads.

I noted that the likelihood of a wrong-way driver striking us might seem slim, but they’re going to hit somebody, and what makes us think it won’t be us?

I am reminded of a story my 90-year-old father told me in the summer of 2008, two years before he died, that so tickled my fancy, I wrote it down on a scrap of paper and tucked it away.

Occasionally, I read the note, which I keep in my office in a little drawer labeled “Misc.”

It is a declaration from Dad’s maternal grandmother, Katherine Shields, who lived in Scotland. She uttered it after being in a car crash with her two sons who had purchased the vehicle in the 1920s.

“You’ll nay get me in one of those things again, even if it was King George’s chariot, mounted in gold,” she said.

We humans do things that at first glance, seem nutty, like operating vehicles that have the ability to zoom along at more than 100 mph, or riding in big metal tubes that fly across the skies even faster, transporting us to distant lands.

They say it’s safer to fly in airplanes than travel in cars, which to the uninitiated seems to make no sense.

But truth is stranger than fiction, and the thought of people driving impaired to the point where they mistake north from south is a reality that we, nowadays, must accept.

As the July 4 holiday week approaches, we’d do well to be mindful of the possibilities that await us as we travel.

And if we encounter someone who is impaired and has access to car keys, do something.

It could very well save a life, or two.

Amy Calder has been a Morning Sentinel reporter 35 years. Her columns appear here Saturdays. She is the author of the book, “Comfort is an Old Barn,” a collection of her curated columns, published in 2023 by Islandport Press. She may be reached at acalder@centralmaine.com. For previous Reporting Aside columns, go to centralmaine.com