I got the phone call around 7:30AM.  It was my wife and her voice was shaking, choking back tears.  She said she was in an accident and that the truck was totaled. Totaled? I thought to myself, my God, what kind of accident could have totaled a 2 ½ ton, hulking Ford Excursion SUV?  Before I could ask the next question, the one I didn’t want to ask, she said, “The girls and I are alright, just some cuts and bruises.” I was able to start breathing again.  She began to apologize for the SUV and I gently cut her off.  “I don’t care about the truck, as long as you and the girls are okay.”  The girls were my two daughters.

I got the location of the accident, briefly told the lead guy in my shop the situation, light on the details which I didn’t have anyway, and jumped in my truck to find them.  As I approached the accident scene, I saw an ambulance, with siren blaring and lights flashing, going the opposite way.  I called my wife’s cell phone and when I got her I asked, “Did you just pass me in the ambulance?”  She said, “Yes, we’re headed to the hospital to be checked out.”  So I made a U-Turn to go meet them in the emergency room.

The Accident

What had happened was that my wife was crossing an intersection when another car blew through the red light.  According to one witness it looked like he was going 60 mph, according to another it looked like he was going 100 mph.  They said the nearly 19′ long, 2 ½ ton vehicle with a massive V-10 engine that my wife was driving was lifted up in the air, turned 180 degrees and landed on its side.  My wife had to kick out the windshield to crawl out and guide our daughters out behind her to safety.  Thankfully it didn’t catch fire.

Why the other driver was driving the way he was we never found out.  He was pronounced dead at the scene. He was driving a Kia, a small Korean import, and before impact, I’m sure he was getting great gas mileage.  He went from leaving a small carbon footprint to leaving no footprints at all.

My wife was exonerated from any responsibility for the accident.  She and my daughters were completely innocent.  Had Ford been required only to build highly fuel efficient econoboxes, half my family would have been killed that morning.  In fact, the driver who was behind my wife said that if she had not been there, he was sure he would be dead, as it would have been him that was hit by the speeding car in her place.

Freedom to Choose

They are alive because I have the liberty, so far, to buy any vehicle that I choose and can afford.  The choices are many and I have made many choices through my life.  That is primarily because the government has not yet taken away that liberty and demanded what types of vehicles can be built and by whom.

My first car was a Toyota Celica, which I purchased just after graduating from college.  It was well made, well equipped, and although a little expensive at $4,700 brand new, I thought it was worth it.  That car served me well for 105,000 miles. When it was time for a replacement I bought a Plymouth Sapporo and I really liked it. Unfortunately, someone liked it as much and it was stolen when it had just 9,000 miles on it. It was a Chrysler Corporation car, but under the hood it was Japanese.  Still living in the Bronx, I decided to buy something functional but not too attractive.  I remember my friend’s rationale for buying a Subaru while living in the city.  None of the parts fit in a gypsy cab. My next vehicle was a Toyota Corolla.

Cars for a Growing Family

When my wife and I married in 1986 she brought to the marriage her Ford Mustang.  My Corolla was starting to get tired and my wife was pregnant, so it was time to get a new vehicle.  I bought a Ford Probe, with front wheel drive and turbocharged.  It was hard to decide if it was American or Japanese.  It was sold by Ford, built in the United States by Mazda which is a Japanese company, but Ford owned 25% of Mazda at the time.  It made for interesting conversation, but not worth losing any sleep over.

After our second child, the Probe and the Mustang were getting a little cramped.  So we said goodbye to the Mustang and hello to a Volvo 740 Turbo Wagon.  This was my wife’s dream car, owing somewhat to her Swedish heritage.

Things were going well for us and it was time to replace the Probe.  I leased a BMW M Roadster and had more fun behind the wheel of a car than I can remember before or since.  We both thoroughly enjoyed tooling down the road with the top down, turning heads as we went.  Life was good.

My wife and I had two more children and as they grew, the jump seat in the back of the Volvo was less than optimal.  In the winter the heat never seemed to reach back there and in the summer the kids in the back felt like a couple of tomato plants in a hothouse.  So it was time for our next vehicle, which for the first time I bought completely on the Internet.  It was a Ford Expedition.  I had seating for eight and room for some cargo as well, and heat and air conditioning all the way to the back.  The kids could each sit comfortably without bumping into each other and to reach out and smack someone next to them took some effort.  That vehicle served us well for a couple of years and then as they grew, our needs grew and when it was time for the next move, we got the Excursion, bigger, they didn’t come.

Meanwhile things became a little more challenging for us.  When the BMW’s lease was up, back it went.  I took over the Volvo for a while until I started a new construction related business and then I took over my father-in-law’s Chevy pick-up truck which he left for my son when he passed away.  After a year when the business got more established I put the Chevy aside for my son and the company bought a Ford F-350 Super Duty, dual wheel pickup truck with a diesel engine, which I still drive.

The Nest Starts to Empty

Then came the accident.  As soon as we got the insurance money for our totaled vehicle we immediately went out and bought another Excursion, with safety the foremost reason.  Ford wasn’t making them anymore so we bought a used one.  I wanted my family protected.

When my son moved out freeing up a seat on the “bus” and my wife started selling real estate and gas prices started to climb, we reevaluated the Excursion.  The Volvo was gone, and at twelve mpg and my wife driving a lot more, it didn’t make sense.  With five of us at home, at worst we could all fit into the pickup truck with its crew cab.  So she bought a Volkswagon EOS.  The savings on gas would make up for any differences in payments on it.  She now had her own convertible and was very happy.

About six months later, my older daughter got her license and wanted a car.  She didn’t have much money for purchasing it or for gas so she needed something economical.  Her choice, a Volkswagon Jetta.

Individual Liberty or Government Diktat

What’s the point of this stroll down vehicular memory lane?  To demonstrate that with liberty we have a great many choices.  We also have different needs at different times in our lives.  Through a free market I was able to select from a number of vehicles from different manufacturers, from different countries, to find what fit our needs.  Those companies decided what to build to suit the market.  The cars that I eventually chose, though not done conscientiously at the time, were from each of those manufacturer’s strengths, not their weaknesses.  I did not choose an economical car, when I needed one, from one of the Big Three.  We did however, choose some of their sporty models (Mustang, Probe) and their trucks (Excursion, Expedition, F-350, Silverado).

The market should tell them what cars to build and build at a profit.  Government should not require them to build six or eight cars that they have to sell at a loss for each vehicle they can sell at a profit, to meet some government mandate such as CAFE standards. As the market causes fuel prices to rise, the market will react with increased demand for more fuel efficient cars.  We should be able to choose when that works best for us.  If we have a distance to commute, we will more inclined to factor fuel efficiency into the equation.  However, if we want to travel in luxury two miles to our favorite restaurant, who cares if the car that gets us there only gets 8 mpg?  Many families have more than one car for that very reason.  Who is some government bureaucrat to tell us what we can choose among?

This Thanksgiving I can sit down with my family, and be thankful that I had that choice, and I can hug each one of them and pray it stays that way.