WHAT’S SO FUNNY:The Road Worrier

I’ve driven up to Los Angeles and back a few times recently, and it’s been quite an experience driving out the canyon past El Toro Road.

It’s been easy. Spacious. I want to say “safe.”

Anyone who’s lived in Laguna a while has had an exciting experience or two driving the canyon road and would prefer not to have any more.

Years ago, Patti Jo and I almost got canceled coming back from our honeymoon by a driver who drifted over to welcome us back head-on. At the last instant, we veered and he corrected, but we still see him coming at us in our memory album.

When I first moved here, I couldn’t figure out why anyone would build a two-way road that alternated between two and three lanes. Later I decided it was done as a test of character.

On the stretches when you had two lanes on your side, you could try to pass as many other vehicles as possible before the road narrowed again and you ran out of room. It was a great opportunity to drive like an ass, with the hair-raising added possibility of a head-on collision if you miscalculated.

The other day, I drove that stretch of now-separated road, and I had two lanes to work with the whole way. It was wonderful; it was soothing. I almost stuck a leg out the window. The only way I could have had a head-on collision was to make a three-point turn and go back the wrong way.

With our daughter Katie driving now, we’re especially happy about anything that makes life on the road less intense. She’s a good driver, but that doesn’t help much when you encounter a bad one.

Of course, no one I’ve ever known has admitted to being a bad driver. It’s like admitting you don’t have a sense of humor. But if you use your car as a high-speed phone booth, or juggle CDs while you change lanes, or think you’re even better when you’ve had a few, or don’t remember how to activate your turn signal, you’re not, technically, good. And you’re out there. I’ve seen you.

With Katie in her first driving years, I worry about bad drivers, and I worry about bad luck — the sudden appearance of a surfboard flying off the roof of the car ahead, the mattress in the road.

In a world of rare but sudden menace, it does me good to contemplate the extra lane she’ll have in the canyon now.

I’m due back up in Los Angeles pretty soon, so I’ll see you out there, on a nice wide stretch of road where we can make our calls with confidence.