Dodging Traffic and Surfers on Porter Wagoner Boulevard

by Pa Rock

Defensive Driver

I've been in a few wrecks in my lifetime, though none serious, and as far as I know I have never caused a vehicle accident.  I like to think of myself as being a "defensive" driver, one who is constantly on the lookout for the lapses of other drivers.  

A few mornings ago I had been to town and was headed home along one of our primary small-town traffic arteries, a four-land affair named for a hometown boy and country music legend, Porter Wagoner.  I was in the far right lane putting along and minding my own business when suddenly I saw a car headed toward me - in my lane!  I slowed and was looking for a place to pull over when the other driver suddenly realized his error and swerved across two lanes and finally made it over to where he was in sync with the rest of the traffic.  Fortunately the speed limit on Porter Wagoner Boulevard is forty-five miles an hour. If it had been seventy, several of us would have been in trouble.

But that was just one startling traffic encounter.  Yesterday morning, along the very same stretch of road, I experienced another.  Again in the far right lane I suddenly noticed a young man ahead of me who appeared to be standing in the road - yet sliding swiftly forward.  Although he was a safe distance ahead of me, I slowed out of caution.  From where I was positioned it looked as though the helmet-less youth was probably on a skateboard, so I signaled - planning to carefully go around him.  But as I started to pull into the left lane to pass, the fellow traveling upright slid into the left lane ahead of me - without signaling.  It was then I could see that he was riding on a small board with one wheel!  His motoring resembled surfing, and he looked totally at ease sliding from lane to lane, certainly more at ease than I was as I watched him.

I came home and did some quick research.   The contraption that the young man was riding was a "onewheel" which was described on one internet site as "a self-balancing, single-wheel, electric board-sport, recreational personal transporter," also sometimes referred to as an "electric skateboard."  They currently sell for a thousand to fifteen hundred dollars each.

My son told me that he had seen two of them motivating down Porter Wagoner one evening a couple of days prior.

The fellow that I saw was wearing no safety or protective equipment - just a tee-shirt and shorts - but I will say this in his defense - he was not eating - or texting - but that will no doubt be next.  There are many good places to eat along Porter Wagoner Boulevard, and what self-respecting traffic-surfer would be caught without a phone!

Pa Rock is feeling his age.