To quote a famous frog, “It isn’t easy being green.” We tried to be. In attempting to be ecologically responsible (and save on the gas) we bought a hybrid car.
I was perfectly happy with the car I had, but when it started acting like the Little Nash Rambler from that ’60s song, I needed a new one. Do you remember the lyrics? “… beep, beep, beep, beep … Hey, buddy, how can I get this car out of second gear?” With my car, it was any gear.
After deliberation between uncertain repairs on a 10-year-old car and a new vehicle with improved safety features, my black beauty won out. It has a back-up camera, which I greatly need; a GPS, which is convenient; and blind-spot indicators that are a wonderful invention. And it gets 34 miles to the gallon. How green is that?
We use it on longer trips, so every Thursday when my husband goes in to Baltimore to teach I get to drive his SUV, which I have dubbed “The Tank.” The Tank does have a special safety feature which is automatic. If it gets too close to the vehicle in front of it, a light flashes and it slows down. That is impressive and should have been invented years ago.
My car doesn’t have that. However, a couple of weeks ago, as I was slowing down for a light and to make a turn, there was a brief flash, I lost power and a message appeared on my dashboard: pull over now.
I still had a little power so I crept to the shoulder, put my hazard lights on and stopped.
Having read in the manual (I had actually read part of the manual) that if I was out of gas the car could proceed on the battery for a few miles, I moved on a bit, but I still had plenty of gas.
Another nice thing about the new car is that attached to the key is a tag with the number for roadside assistance. They identified my location from my phone and sent out a tow truck.
While I waited a state trooper stopped to see if I needed any help. That was appreciated.
Soon the truck pulled up. The driver, concerned about my safety standing by the road, helped me climb up into the cab of his truck. I had also read in the manual, while I waited, that my car should only be towed on a flatbed, and fortunately that is what he had.
The car was towed to our local dealership. They put their computers on it and sent the results to the Ford Company.
We waited a day or so for the report. When it came back the report was that the car had lost power because it was going 158 miles per hour. The car only goes to 120 and I only know that by looking at the speedometer. And the car never had that problem again on all the test drives it was given.
I think if I had turned it off and restarted it, the computers would have been rebooted. That seems to be what happened.
To paraphrase that frog again, “Computers, you can’t live with ’em, you can’t live without ’em … There’s something mysticalish about ’em.”
