Driving While Black Adjacent
By: Kerala Taylor
Tags: Equality, Interracial Relationships, Police Brutality, BlackLivesMatter, Family

Driving While Black Adjacent

My family nearly died in a car wreck. The cop on the scene couldn’t have cared less.

Photo via Canva.

When my daughter was 10 months old, I nearly killed her. It was kind of her fault. Cracker Barrel is also to blame.

Our family had taken a “seven-hour” road trip from Washington DC to Rhode Island to see my stepson play football. I put “seven-hour” in quotes because one must always use quotes when discussing how much time it takes to get from point A to point B on the East Coast, particularly when your destination is on the other side of New York City. I grew up on the West Coast, where one might break down in the middle of no-man’s-land Nevada and stand on the road for 16 hours before sighting another vehicle. But on the East Coast, there is no such thing as no-man’s-land. You’re never not somewhere.

So the seven hours it should have taken to travel from Rhode Island back to DC would in all likelihood be 11 hours, and as we approached the dreaded Big Apple, we decided to stop at Cracker Barrel for some breakfast. I don’t remember what I ordered, but it was delicious — full of grease and gluten. As my husband likes to say, it was the sort of meal that would give you the “itis.” My daughter had kept me up for much of the night before, as she was still prone to do at 10 months old, and I kept requesting coffee refills to prepare for the next leg of the journey.

I’m no coffee snob, but Cracker Barrel coffee suspiciously resembles the color, consistency, and taste of dishwater. That’s why I partially blame the establishment for falling asleep at the wheel about 20 minutes later while careening down I-95. I distinctly remember the few moments leading up to The Accident. My husband and baby had both fallen victim to the “itis” and were in the backseat, snoozing. The car was deliciously quiet. Rays of thin autumn sunlight were filtering through the window.

When you’re a parent with small children, happiness hits you in spurts. It is intense, ephemeral. One moment, all is right with the world. Your children are laughing or peacefully slumbering. They are the greatest thing that has ever happened to you. You feel awash in love.

The next minute, all hell breaks loose. Someone starts screaming. Something shatters on the floor. Or, you wake up to find the vehicle you were supposed to be driving is spiraling across four lanes of traffic on I-95, hitting the guardrail, spiraling back, hitting the concrete median, and spiraling again before squeaking to a reluctant stop.

By the time I woke up from my behind-the-wheel nap, there was nothing I could do. The car had taken on a life of its own. I had to sit there and ride it out while a single terrifying thought played on repeat in my head: I’m about to kill my family.

After the spiraling ceased, there was a single stomach-churning moment of silence. Then the screaming commenced. I have never been so grateful to hear my daughter’s screams. They were at her usual ear-splitting tenor, which meant that she was not only alive, but very much so.

We all walked away from the car entirely intact. Well, my daughter couldn’t quite walk yet, but she was clutched tightly in my visibly shaking arms.

What do you do with a baby when you find yourself in the middle of four lanes of traffic on I-95? The sunlight that had been filtering so pleasantly across my face through the car window only minutes before was actually cruel and cold. My head was spinning, even though the car had stopped. Behind us, an army of immobile cars sat and glared at us. In the distance, I faintly registered sirens.

A concerned couple came running up to us and said, “Are you ok?”

I said, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”

They said, “It’s cold, come sit in our car.”

I said, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”

By the time we clambered into their heated car, my baby had stopped crying. She was wearing a slightly quizzical look, a look that seemed to communicate: “Mom, why are you hugging me so tight? Why do do you keep saying, ‘Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God?’” But I couldn’t stop hugging her, and I couldn’t stop saying, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”