Intersectionality

and other hazards of the road

I’ve long assumed that I will eventually meet my demise by running across a road to take a photo, or while standing next to one, shooting. This has made me increasingly careful with my roadside photo ops, and with car travel in general. Now, I only pull over where there’s plenty of room to park, and with enough runway to pull out again when I’m done. But as I’ve gotten more cautious, the people in the world around me have gotten more careless.

A thing I see in Joshua Tree National Park these days is people abandoning their car in the middle of the road while they Get The Shot. Maybe they think it’s OK because they’re in a park, but it’s still a damn road. Models pose in front of Joshua Trees that are only a few steps from pavement; their photographer frames them with the open landscape behind them so it looks like they’re in the middle of nowhere. In truth, they’re five feet from a car with both doors open, the open trunk bursting with wardrobe, a line of cars forming behind it. Sometimes, other cars stop; other people with cameras hop out, because why not? Influencers influence, don’t you know.

Rental cars with sunroofs are very popular because you don’t even have to exit your vehicle to get that killer shot for Instagram. I see kids shooting video this way in the park: standing belly button high out of the sunroof, holding a phone on a selfie stick. Their hair blows wildly at 60 mph, while the driver passes all the other cars ruining the “open road” shot in front of them. Doesn’t matter that the speed limit is 40. Doesn’t matter that most of the road in the park is painted with double yellow lines. These days, double yellow means “Tourist Passing Zone.”

Watching driving behavior deteriorate in the park—and in my once-sleepy small town of Joshua Tree—tipped me off to how bad it’s gotten out in the real world. A road trip this summer confirmed that many drivers are straight up assholes now. That double yellow passing thing happens everywhere, and it’s terrifying. A car trying to pass me (while I was doing 70) narrowly avoided a head-on collision when a “surprise” car appeared after cresting a dip that had obscured it. Double yellow means you can’t see oncoming cars, ding dong. It’s shocking how many young people don’t know this, or don’t care. 

With all this in mind, I stopped to take a photo of the wind turbines in North Palm Springs. The road was four lanes at that point, with plenty of berm. It was super windy (these turbines sure picked the right place to live!) and the light quality changed while I waited to cross, so I didn’t spend a lot of time on the photo. I got back to my car in one piece, having cheated death one more time. High five to me. 

After I pulled back onto the road, I quickly caught up to a beater vehicle, rattling along. It was a beige SUV, possibly formerly brown, faded by harsh desert conditions. I couldn’t tell if it was old or just dilapidated. It had been a long time since I’d seen such a clunker on the road. My high desert neighborhood is full of Teslas and brand new Jeeps these days. Rainbow flags have displaced Confederate ones in a major demographic shift among full time residents. Fewer “desert rats” means fewer vehicles like this, which were once the desert norm. 

Pieces of metal and plastic dangled and bounced like they were trying to jump ship. I was fascinated by a once-decorative piece of trim just above the license plate. Maybe only ten percent still attached, it hung crookedly, bouncing in the wind, as did the front fender on the driver’s side.

I could see the driver, a woman, 40ish, in her rearview mirror. Her hair was piled messily (but cute) on the top of her head. She had lots of tattoos, visible in her sleeveless garment. Her elbow rested on the open window frame, holding a cigarette. A little dog—a Chihuahua, I think—jumped back and forth between the passenger seat and the back seat.

As I watched that piece of trim on the back—mesmerized by it, really—the vehicle suddenly slowed in front of me. The hazard lights came on. We had both just crossed over the 10 freeway and were on the downhill side of the overpass headed toward a busy intersection. I turned on my hazards as well and tailed her at a safe distance. Cars whizzed around us, horns honking, as they careened toward the freeway or to the gas stations on either side of the road. In other words, this was a terrible place to stall.

She managed to coast slowly past the intersection, but her car came to rest at an almost-blind corner. She jumped out and started to push. This woman, in a floral maxi dress, was attempting to push a 4,000 pound vehicle—alone—while men sped past honking and flipping her off.

Whatever happened to helping a damsel in distress?

The road ahead had a slight incline; she was getting nowhere. 

“Get back in,” I yelled out my window. She did. I very carefully eased up to her bumper and pushed the SUV with my truck. Once we were safely off the corner, she ran back to my window.

“My battery’s dead. My husband was supposed to get a new one, but... he didn’t.” 

I asked if she wanted me to push her into the gas station.

“No, how about just a little more up the road, like past the driveway?” That is exactly where I would have stopped to take a photo, so I gave her a thumbs up.

She got back in and I pushed her another 100 feet. I pulled up next to her. “Do you have jumper cables?” She said she did.

I drove up to where I could turn around. I came back the wrong way to face her open hood. By the time I got there, she had the cables hooked up to her battery, ready to go. I popped my hood, she attached the alligator clips to my battery, like a pro.

“I’m Nicole, by the way,” she said.

”I’m Bonnie.” We bumped elbows.

“So, your battery decided to fucking die in a dangerous intersection at rush hour, huh, Nicole?” We laughed.

She tried to turn the engine over. No luck. Waited, tried again. No luck.

I said, “Is there someone you can call?”

She said, “I don’t have a phone.”

This little detail tugged at my heart. Not the junker car. Not the deadbeat husband who didn’t do what he said he’d do (ultimately putting his wife in danger). No, it was the lack of a phone in affluent Palm Springs, California, USA, in 2021, that broadcast “poor” to me. Like it or not, everyone has a phone these days, especially in a place like Palm Springs, where people literally drive their golf carts to shop at Whole Foods.

I reached into my car for mine, running down a mental checklist of modern “do’s and don’ts” that included getting stranger germs on something I touch a million times a day, as well as transmitting my phone number to another unknown stranger. I went into settings and turned off “show my caller ID,” as she watched. 

“I’m paranoid,” I said, as I handed her the phone.

“So is my husband. He probably won’t answer.” She was right, he didn’t. But we’d killed enough time for the battery to charge. On the next try, the SUV roared to life.

I unhooked my battery, she unhooked hers and that was that. All in all, it was a very efficient operation that took less than 15 minutes. Put another way, it was quick enough that the guy who scowled at me as I pushed Nicole past the gas station entrance—thus slowing him down for maybe 11 seconds—got to scowl at me again as I pulled into the same driveway (from the wrong direction), on his way out.

It was disappointing to see that what’s traditionally been known as “city” behavior—the rush rush of indifference for your fellow human, the lack of kindness and compassion—has reached rural America. It’s true these might have been “city people” just passing through, getting gas on their way back to LA, but the hostility on their faces surprised me, even as a former city person. A Good Samaritan shortage bodes less well than a supply shortage in what might be difficult times ahead, I thought.

As I drove off, I decided that when the Zombie Apocalypse hits (if it hasn’t already and we just don’t know it yet), I will seek out Nicole—with her SUV-pushing moxie, her calm, zero-drama efficiency—to be on my survival team. Those creeps in their shiny cars with fancy rims can barely survive a Zoom meeting, let alone societal breakdown.

My new rule is if you find helping a fellow human coasting into a dangerous intersection in a death trap inconvenient, I sure as hell won’t share my supply of canned goods with you when the walking dead start limping across the desert.   

Wind turbines, North Palm Springs, California