Pranging my personality: that crunch moment.

For a few nights following the ‘event’ I had fractured sleep and felt an all-consuming miserable malaise take hold of me which I simply couldn’t shake off. Not even the plethora of well-meaning words of wisdom from those around me moved me into the light of positivity.

The gut-wrenching scream of twisting metal whilst simultaneously grasping the fact that this episode couldn’t be obliterated with a dab of T-Cut was on continuous repeat in my head. I had crashed my pride and joy!

The circumstances were stark ─ I had driven into a metal post hidden below my eyeline as I sought to leave a carpark, forgetting that this totally fucking useless piece of roadside furniture was there. It tore into both nearside doors and the sill; when I eventually summoned the courage to pull over and check the distress it looked like I had been broadsided by a raging rhinoceros or hit by an Exocet missile.

I was fully cognisant of the initial effects of the stress response – colloquially known as the fight or flight syndrome. As the immediate feelings of anger and anxiety that had rushed through my system ebbed away, I nonetheless felt like a twat of the most epic proportions. Was there an intrinsic connection between my personality and my car, and thus my emotional wellbeing, creating this colossal cranial liability? I was once again on a mission to understand why I felt this way…

Mark Leary, Ph.D., formerly of Duke University, North Carolina, asserts that there are two constituents to pain – the physical and the psychological. As I exited my car to view the carnage, I wasn’t physically damaged but was this visual inspection true? Professor Russell W. Belk of the University of Utah concluded that cars connect to, and reflect, our identities ─ so maybe, just maybe, the physical damage was symbiotic. Nevertheless, Dr Leary noted that, “When a person’s feelings are hurt, the area of the brain responsible for the affective component of pain is activated. That is, they experience the psychological distress of pain.” I was hurting like someone had physically punched me in the guts and this academic clarification at least explained why the goodhearted assurances that I was OK and “it’s just a lump of metal” did fuck all to calm the Catherine wheel of inner chaos pulsing throughout my entire body.

Parking the car a hair’s breadth away from the garden bush that abutted the driveway at home in a woeful attempt to hide my embarrassment from the world at large, my utter distress was placed on the frontpage of ‘Humiliation Times’ when a friend – and ironically, a car dealer – asked to examine the epicentre of the theatre of gore. His pragmatism was more encouraging although I still felt like a gold medallist fuckwit.

According to psychiatrist Neel Burton M.D., “Embarrassment, shame, guilt, and humiliation all imply the existence of value systems.” This made sense since I had smashed up several cars before. As a cop I was involved in numerous police accidents – or POLACCS in the trade – often during arse clenching pursuits and sometimes thinking that blues and twos would simply carve out a clear route through the traffic ahead. The first time was when I overtook a car that I thought had pulled to the side to let me through, only for it to then legally turn right into my intended flightpath ─ I crunched into the gleaming Vauxhall saloon with style. If that wasn’t bad enough, I then failed my police driving retest assessment and had to undergo the indignity of attending another three-week driving course in the wilds of Banbury; but the key difference was that on each occasion I didn’t own the vehicle in question and the inherent connection with my identity was absent. Dr Burton’s spin on humiliation continued with the following sage observation: “In hierarchical societies, the elites go to great lengths to protect and uphold their reputation and standing.” This was compelling and a personal eureka moment exploded around my ears. Was my sombre mood more reflective of my own sense of self? A misplaced sense of superiority. Was I so far up my own backside that I felt such outcomes were beneath me? Maybe so, and this realisation began the journey of repair – both to the car and my broken ego. My own vision of me and the reality of my own human fragility had collided simultaneously with the real collision that my wheels had with that frigging post. A most humbling moment.

After a week in the body shop we were reunited and it felt good. A gleaming car and a grinning me – we were at one once again. But as I drove away with a renewed sense of caution, I wondered if my tale of woe and self-discovery would garner any sympathy from the majority of other road users?

Research undertaken by The Institute of Personality and Social Research at the University of California, Berkeley, examined the relationship between deficient driving habits and wealth. Two brands were highlighted as spawning drivers who could best be described as the largest arseholes of the autoroutes – BMW and Mercedes-Benz.

The motoring webpage PetrolPrices further put the boot into BMW drivers by announcing that “BMW drivers have the worst reputation amongst UK motorists, with 82% of survey respondents stating that they disliked BMW drivers, 80% said that they expected BMW drivers to be aggressive behind the wheel, and rather randomly, 34% of those questioned also stated that they wouldn’t even consider dating a BMW owner.”

As I disappear speedily over the horizon in the extension of my personality I leave you with two pieces of hitherto missing intelligence that may, or may not, alter your view of me and my recent crunching experience:

• I do use my indicators.
• I own a BMW X5.

Make of this disclosure what you will, but please remember the wise words of American car designer Chris Bangle: “We at BMW do not build cars as consumer objects, just to drive from A to B. We build mobile works of art.”

And I love my Mona Lisa!

Title photograph by Clark Van Der Beken on Unsplash
© Ian Kirke 2022 & all uncredited photographs
@ianjkirke