Driving for Dollars

Stress and fatigue are the most difficult aspects to driving for dollars, at least for me. I do what I can to be organized, but there are always things that come up that are unanticipated. I’ve had to learn to build time for those things into my schedule. I’ll schedule one or two hours for lunch and for dinner if I can, plan and take vacations regularly, eat right and exercise regularly. That last one is a biggie. When I started exercising it made a big difference in how I was able to manage the stress and fatigue, but it does take time.

Another thing that helps is to not let technology rule my life. Rather, it is a tool that makes things easier for me. I turn my cell phone off during meals, exercise, and social times, though I carry it with me all the time and don’t leave home without it. With email – I look at it quickly, and if it needs a quick response I’ll either make a phone call or send a real short email response and then call later. Otherwise I respond to it when I can. I have found that emails are more time consuming in the long run than a phone call. I’m also now scheduling time in my life for reflection and contemplation. I think that human beings were never designed to multi-task, but everyone is doing that now. Reflection and contemplation gives one a chance to “reset” so that the perspective remains fresh.

Falling asleep has always been more difficult for me than for others, so falling asleep while driving has never been a problem. But I do feel the fatigue and notice the loss of concentration when I am sleep-deprived. For the most part I try to maintain a regular sleep-awake schedule, even on the days I have free, so when I have that early morning school concert or call it is not as disruptive to me as it might otherwise be.

If I can, I try to plan on arriving at my destination an hour or more ahead of time so I can eliminate the worry of getting there on time. I plan my shopping and my errands such that they are often done at the “remote location” instead of in my own neighborhood. This also helps me to stay “on” during the rehearsal or concert, since it is very difficult to spend one to two hours in traffic and keep one’s attention on that so as not to be part of some accident, and then go straight into a rehearsal or concert and concentrate on that for an additional two and one half hours.

The most I have driven in one year is 45,000 miles. The least in one year was 26,000. I buy my cars new. I don’t lease them, since that’s always more expensive in the long run and especially if you drive a lot of miles per year. When I buy them, I always get the extended warranty if one is offered by the manufacturer (not the dealer) and have always found it useful. The brand that I buy is always number one or two in reliability on the consumer survey lists. I always have it serviced regularly and when I buy tires they are always the high-quality premium kind. All of this is not cheap.

The price of gas has really hit us all pretty hard in the pocketbook out here. I used to spend $20-50 each week in gas. Now it’s often double that and sometimes well over $100 per week. Some of my colleagues have purchased those new hybrid cars and they are working out well. I’m also looking at one as my next car. Needless to say, these sorts of expenses are much more than an average working person with a daily commute of less than 25 miles would have to pay. Last year I helped one of my union locals with some orchestra negotiations, and musicians in two separate orchestras were looking to get mileage payments into the CBAs (only two or three orchestras in the region currently have such provisions). I think this will be something that musicians are going to expect in newer CBAs, but it will be difficult to get.

In all my years driving for dollars, I’ve never had a serious accident, though I’ve had my share of flat tires and one mechanical failure. That mechanical failure happened on the way to a rehearsal, and ironically, it was for one of the orchestras that is an easy commute for me. It was something of a freak occurrence (and yes, it was covered by the extended warranty) since it was a part that almost never breaks. The auto manufacturer didn’t even have a replacement in the U.S. and had to ship the part from overseas. The extended warranty also covered the car rental until the part was delivered and installed, though I had to fight to get the rental covered. A couple of musicians in one of the orchestras I belong to were involved in accidents on the way to rehearsals (they were separate accidents). Both escaped injury, but for one of them his car was a total loss. In both cases it was the other driver’s fault. I also knew a musician who was killed on the way to a morning orchestra concert. I never saw a news article on it, but apparently it was a car and big-rig accident, and I heard that the final accident report attributed the accident to driver fatigue. Then there was the tragic accident in Oregon last year that killed two musicians and injured another on a return trip from an orchestra rehearsal that was caused by a drunk driver. I don’t think I can find words to really describe that one. With all the driving that many of us do each year, perhaps we should consider ourselves lucky.