His First Vehicle

The student parking lot at Hermes High School tells much without uttering a single word. Estimate the number of vehicles and one can estimate what percentage of the student body is in the driver’s seat each morning heading to school. Over the course of any school year, I would estimate it grows from a little over 40% to just shy of 60%. Factor in the number of students who live walking distance from the school and it would be safe to say that roughly 80% of driving-age students have easy access to either their own vehicle or their family’s second car.

With the exception of one pristinely detailed Jaguar Convertible, one cannot find a single vehicle with a Blue Book value above $15,000. The vast majority are well below that. At the gas station closest to the high school, around this time last year, I ran into Bruce one day not long after school got out. He was pumping gas into a small grey truck. “Hey, Mr. Askins. Nice to see you. Philip has really improved a lot in lacrosse. We’re having a great season together.”

“That seemed to be the case, but hearing it from you confirms it,” I replied. “How long have you had this cute girlfriend, Bruce?” I asked, pointing to his truck.

“This?” Bruce indulged in a quick laugh at my choice to call his truck his girlfriend. “I got this beauty about four months ago. Can you believe it was only five grand?”

Bruce’s experience proved to be very typical in today’s market. As Philip and I started looking at vehicles to purchase, the prices of the used vehicles advertised on Craigslist that Philip wanted were normally quite low. The lowest priced were trucks, SUVs and compact coupes. The pricing explained the purchase habits of the local teenagers. Anyone could drive an SUV, as long as it didn’t look like “a mom’s vehicle.” Most of the remaining boys were driving flatbed trucks. And most of the remaining girls were driving compact coupes. In contrast, prices were higher for Minivans, commuter sedans and Soccer-Mom SUVs, even when taking mileage into consideration.

After spending a little over an hour online, Philip concluded he was most interested in the Ford Explorers. There were four high mileage Ford Explorers listed locally on Craigslist. All were priced at $2,000. While there was some difficulty connecting with the sellers, we eventually connected with someone in Santa Carla.

Buying a high-mileage vehicle advertised on Craigslist gave us a peak at a demographic our family does not normally encounter. Our seller was a young man in his late twenties. He worked in the supermarket delivery business; his father was the owner of the supermarket delivery contract. He got up ridiculously early every morning but was done with his work day in the early afternoon. It turned out his driver’s license had been suspended, so his role the delivery business was unskilled lifting, packing and unpacking. By selling his Ford Explorer, he would be getting just enough money to pay the fines he owed and get his driver’s license back. He had an out-of-wedlock four-year-old son and was dating a girl close to his age who also had an out-of-wedlock child. Both our seller and his girlfriend lived with their respective parents.

The Ford Explorer was impeccably waxed and maintained on the outside, and the engine purred as if there were less than fifty thousand miles on the vehicle. The engine and body condition alone convinced me we were getting a fantastic deal. Nonetheless, the inside of the vehicle told a very different story. The upholstery was heavily worn with more than one duct tape patch, and smelled like it still carried the second hand smoke from ten years and at least a half pack per day. There was a cavity revealing a rat’s nest of wiring where the radio would normally be found. Most interesting of all was something the seller described as a security system but which looked to me like some kind of sobriety test. It was an awkward second key beneath the dashboard that needed to be carefully removed and replaced for the engine to start. Any driver would need to both remember the second key just below one’s right knee and have the dexterity to remove and re-insert it properly; hence my conclusion that it was a sobriety test.

Our seller was handsome, toned and extremely charming. His girlfriend looked like she could model professionally. We executed the transaction at the Motor Vehicle Registry office. About a quarter of our purchase price paid for various delinquent fees. The representative explained to our seller that the largest fine, which would cost him nearly all that remained of the purchase price, could only be paid at the County Courthouse. Philip and I drove our seller back home. He and his girlfriend unloaded his personal belongings and then we all said our goodbyes.

Philip was very pleased with the Explorer but wanted my verbal guarantee I would be purchasing a radio and an upholstery cleaning. On the balance I knew he would have one of the more impressive looking boy vehicles in the Hermes High School parking lot. At seventeen, he would be late in joining the ranks of the self-driven but this seemed to more than compensate.