Cops, alligators, dodgy Dodges, and the terror of a trip to the swamp. It’s all fun and games when you get behind the wheel in the South.
WE HAVE A SAYING HERE in Tipperary: If you can drive in Thurles, you can drive anywhere.
Which is mostly true. Certainly it is true in the sense that, if you can handle the traffic in the Cathedral town, which at times is like trying to navigate your way through an open air asylum, then you can probably manage well enough wherever you go.
But as I found out the first time I drove in America, it doesn’t necessarily mean you can drive anywhere without putting yourself and your loved ones in peril.
This was on my second trip to the States, when Tracy and I took the kids to the Carowinds theme park in the city of Charlotte, about a four hour drive from Tracy’s home on the coast.
We had a grand old time at the park, though I refused to go on any of the roller coasters, except for the one specially designed for really timid children.
Then we got in a spot of bother later that night, when I showed the kids how to turn the hotel room into a showjumping arena. With one particularly heroic leap, I cleared the bed like the great old Boomerang might have cleared the wall with Eddie Macken on board, back when the world was still young. But that’s a story for another day. Suffice to say I became known to hotel security simply as Horse.
I was sad when our time there was over, but cheered up no end when it was decided that I should drive us home. And it went without incident, until…well, until it didn’t.
There’s a law in the Carolinas that says, if you do be driving on the highway and you see that the police or emergency services are stopped by the side of the road, you must pull out into the fast lane to pass them by safely. I was not aware of this law until Tracy helpfully informed me of its existence, at exactly the moment I zoomed past a state trooper who had pulled someone over for speeding. The very moment the trooper flashed his torch in our direction.
“Oh no,” says Tracy. “We’re in trouble now,”
“Ah, it’s grand,” says I. “Sure he’s tied up with the other fella.”
But sure enough, in a matter of minutes his flashing jackpot lights appeared over the hill behind us, gaining fast. I pulled over. And as Smokey approached the car, adjusting his cowboy hat and his gun belt, like Wyatt Earp gearing up to take down an outlaw, I broke out in a cold sweat. I had a sudden image of myself in a dingy cell, with a grinning toothless giant called Mad Dog giving me the eye. Or being taken to the nearest swamp and left for the alligators, begging for mercy as Smokey grins and utters the last words I will ever hear on this earth. “We don’t like strangers ‘round these parts.”
Then the cop was at the window, gesturing for me to roll it down. But I couldn’t roll it down because the electrics in Tracy’s old Dodge Intrepid were a bit, uh, dodgy. The back window came down about an inch, though, so we craned our necks around the seats to talk to him.
“Can I see your licence and registration?”
I didn’t have an American driver’s licence, and my Irish one was buried somewhere in my luggage. As for the registration? I didn’t have a clue what that was. Again, the image of Mad Dog’s grinning face flashed before my eyes.
“My licence is in the boot,” says I, with a valiant attempt at a smile which I fear may only have made me look like I’d just escaped from a secure home for the bewildered.
“The boot?” he says.
“Yeah, no. Sorry, I mean the trunk,” I stammered, the maniacal grin getting even wilder.
“The trunk?” he says.
“Yeah.”
“Your licence is in the trunk?”
“It is, yeah.”
“And what’s it doing in the trunk?” he says.
“It lives there with a wife and four children”
At which point he barked at me to get out of the car with my hands over my head and lay face down in the dirt. “And move it!” he says. “Mad Dog can’t wait all night.”
Actually, no, I’m making that up. What happened next was Tracy chimed in, turning on her Southern charm to try and defuse the situation.
“He’s from Ireland!” she says, with a big smile. Which the cop seemed happy to accept as a perfectly valid explanation for stupidity. I didn’t know whether to be insulted, or to cry with relief that I wouldn’t be going to the swamp. And that tonight at least, Mad Dog would go to sleep alone.
In the end the trooper let me off with nothing more than a nod and a smile, and a warning to be more careful.
To which I replied, “Okey dokey, Smokey!”
No, I’m making that up as well. What I really said was, “Yeah, but can you drive in Thurles?”
Maybe he didn’t hear me. Or maybe he thought I was a lunatic, and he was afraid for his own safety. In any case, he kept walking.
I’ll take that as a no.
[A version of this story appeared in the Tipperary Star in November 2004.]
CURRENT LISTENING: The Clash — I Fought The Law
Loughtagalla Times 
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