If the Skid Marks Fit, You Must Commit.(Column)

I was gunning down the longest straightaway in the middle of the pack. Door handle to door handle, bumper to bumper. Laced together tight-too tight. No room to maneuver. I moved my left foot over and let it hover above the brake pedal just in case.

Just then, a freeze-frame. Then another. A couple of rows ahead, the side of a Chevy, now the front, now the other side, spinning across our path in slo-mo. Huh? Dust and a sickening haze of tire smoke as the rest of us went for the brakes and scattered. Missed it!

It could have been one of the worst moments in my years of club racing. Except for one thing: I wasn't racing. This was real life-my life. A moment from my daily commute on Michigan's Interstate 94.

Why is it that people cannot drive down a straight piece of regulation interstate on a clear day without piling into one another every hour on the hour? My 50-mile trip to One AutoWeek Tower is littered with the carcasses of vehicles that have plowed ignominiously into the car directly ahead, often in bumper-to-bumper rush-hour traffic at speeds well below 30 mph.

It would be all too easy to blame these bonehead maneuvers on drivers' common practice of multi-tasking. Talking on cell phones, applying makeup, reading, eating, smoking, drinking decaf lattes and fiddling with nav systems while stressed out about corporate downsizing, impossible workloads, crazy travel schedules or how to get the kids to lacrosse practice-all on too little sleep-you've seen it all and heard it all.

I think it's simpler than that. I think the state of driver skill in this country is abysmal. Laughable. Reprehensible. Thoroughly unacceptable.

And it's costing us an inordinate amount of time and money. Forget the hapless participants in these fender ...