PW: In The God of Driving, you list several reasons for deciding to finally conquer your lifelong fear of driving. What was your biggest motivation?
My biggest motivation was probably a post-9/11 reflex to escape the city or diminish my dependency on airplane travel. It was early October 2002, and I felt a need to lose myself in a challenge so absorbing, compelling and demanding that it nullified all my other anxieties.
But it brought out new anxieties, didn't it?
Absolutely—what other everyday activity forces you to confront the idea of death so directly? Driving is the biggest killer of adolescents—about a jet load every month die in accidents—and making cars safer hasn't reduced accident rates, only changed the kinds of accidents. When driving, you're at the wheel of a 65-mile-per-hour bomb, yet at the same time you're lost in thought, listening to music, conversing. You either have to be in a high state of denial or a high state of anxiety.
Your driving instructor seemed to drive in a high state of grace.
Yes, Attila strikes that ideal balance between complete vigilance and total ease, a result of a thorough knowledge of both machines and people.
How caught up in writing and driving did you get?
It overtook my entire life—the driving lessons, the absorption into the world of motor vehicles and the writing of the book. The total number of hours of lessons must have topped off at about 60, but I spent hours and hours just driving around with Attila, and discovering everyone else's opinions about driving. The male and female perspectives are comically, and sometimes disturbingly, different. It was my only topic of conversation for about a year and a half.
What was your favorite vehicle, or your favorite driving experience, from the book?
They both converge toward the end of the book when I'm driving the [borrowed] Bentley with my daughter in the back. That was a kind of triumphant homecoming, a climactic liberation from my old terrors. But there's nothing to compare with that first anxiety-free ride on the Harley Davidson Fat Boy. That was a life-changing experience—blowing off all the fear of driving and machines and speed. The problem was I was in the passenger seat. [Laughs.]
At one point, an acquaintance spies you in your bulky biking gear and asks anxiously if she should start putting shoulder pads in everything. Was it odd, straddling the worlds of high fashion and transportation?
I felt a little like I was leading a double life, but the worlds of fashion and cars really intersect in design. I also discovered a lot of my fashion friends were closet motor heads. A lot of people who don't even drive are obsessed with automotive design. Somehow it seems more legitimate to care about car design than fashion. Does anyone think it's superficial to care about the appearance of automobiles? Is that because it's a male fixation? But I still get AutoWeek. Women's Wear Daily and AutoWeek.
Any advice for other fearful drivers?
Admit that you have a fear. Stop making excuses. Understand it for what it is. And certainly I would recommend calling Attila. Turn fear into love. Your life will never be the same.
