Years ago when someone spoke of a Titan you knew that person had to be into Greek mythology. The only Titans known about then were the legendary rulers—said to be the children of the Greek gods Uranus and Gaia—who were overthrown by the Olympians. That was before Nissan made the Titan.
And previously, as students of geography would know, there were only two Tundras—the arctic and the alpine. Both are cold, treeless areas; the coldest biome characterized by very low temperatures, very little precipitation (rain or snow), a short growing season, few nutrients, and low biological diversity. Toyota changed all that when it made the Tundra.
Now given the girth, length and power of these vehicles, clearly made to compete with each other and with American-made trucks like the Ford Ranger, F-150 and Super Duty and the Dodge Ram models by Chrysler, and the mostly itty bitty roads we have in Guyana; you could have assumed that the two would not mesh. You would have been wrong. After a few persons imported the Toyota Hilux, which is almost as big, the Titans and Tundras began to show up in significant numbers. Nowadays there are dealers who specialize in these large vehicles. There are even a few Hummers around (but that’s another story).
Because of the narrowness of Georgetown’s streets, negotiating corners, particularly when there might be another vehicle approaching takes some amount of skill. In fact there are some streets where it’s a squeeze even for two regular sized cars. So there I was a few Sundays ago, easing out of a particularly narrow South Georgetown street, when a gleaming white Titan began to turn in. Its driver, a woman, also dressed in gleaming white, had turned too widely and blocked my path. There was no ‘L’ on the Titan, but a sure sign that she was a novice was when she removed both hands from the wheel and made a panicky wave thingy above her head. Please, please don’t take your foot off that brake, woman, was my silent prayer.
There was no room to manoeuvre: to my left was a hole on the grass verge that was so gigantic I feared I’d have to dig my little car out if it went in. But she wasn’t moving. Clearly in the wrong (she was on my side of the street) she decided that I should respect the Titan and began to toot – indicating that I should pull over in the grass. Not on your life, woman, I thought. But I would have done my good deed for the day and reversed, if ‘minibus man’ and ‘taxi man’ who had already pulled up behind me were not blaring their horns and blocking any retreat.
‘Minibus man’, probably a traffic cop in his other life, finally exited his bus, directed the traffic queuing up behind Titan woman in white and got her to reverse off the corner. “Now hug the corner tight when yuh turning,” I could hear him advising her. “Gotta be a madman gie she tha thing fuh drive,” he said as he walked back to his bus full of waiting passengers. I concurred, especially when, as I drove off, I saw two small children in the back.
I encountered Titan woman again last Sunday as I slowly negotiated another severely flooded city street, with a silent prayer on my lips as red warning lights flashed madly on my dashboard. Maybe she remembered me too as she drove past in a bit too much of a hurry—given the weather—splashing a tsunami of flood water across my front windscreen. Or maybe she just hasn’t learned the 5 Cs as yet. (thescene@stabroeknews.com)
