Columnist Bev Kehe-Rowland’s Chevrolet Equinox is pictured.

My late first husband was a car guy whose hobby was buying and selling low mileage cars and owning classic cars, therefore I was exposed to many makes and models with both automatic and manual transmissions. Air filters, gaskets, fuel pumps, carburetors and quarter panels were all familiar words. The latest find, a new paint job or a mechanical tweak was often the topic of dinner conversation.

It was during those years I was asked to speak at the retirement party of a coworker. I chose to speak about the many vehicles I had driven over the ten years she had ridden with me and made a list of the 20 I remembered. One that stands out in my memory is a red early 70s Jeep CJ-7 which resembled the Jeeps used by the military. Another was a two-tone green ’52 Chevy Bel Air with manual transmission, which he had purchased from the original owner. We didn’t always go classic or basic, especially when we rode in the powder blue Cadillac Coupe de Ville with a white Landau roof and impractical white leather interior. Even though my husband hated both, I loved the 1970 yellow Volkswagen with automatic stick shift and chrome wheels and the little red Pontiac Fiero. At the same time, we had another Pontiac in our barn, a 1929 two-seater with an oval back window and wooden wheels. It was one of the few vehicles I did not drive to work.

Even though Chuck was primarily a GM guy, at the time of his death I was driving a 3-month old Plymouth Voyager, our third minivan. Three years later, I married a man who owned a Town and Country. To date, between us, we have owned 11 Chrysler vans. I always went for basics while he went for more options. Since I drove both his and mine, I knew how to operate the options mine did not have.

Over the last 15 years, we’ve traveled thousands of miles, north, south, east and west, visiting every one of the continental states at least once and many national parks. Since my husband always wants to take his own van, including when we drive to church or run errands, my last vehicle’s odometer racked up far fewer miles than his. In fact, I kept it for 17 years because the “Old Girl” and I had only traveled 81,000 miles since I drove that shiny new van from the dealership. I swear we knew what the other was going to do and how we would react to the other’s actions.

Repeatedly, I tried to get my husband to buy a new van in 2020, but he wouldn’t consider it. What man would not rush out and get a new vehicle under those circumstances? Fred Rowland! A few years later, I could see I was going to have to be the one to take the plunge since we needed to have at least one newer set of wheels with low mileage. By that time, I had pretty much decided I was going to give up the third row of seats and most likely go back to a GM product. While I was still deciding what I wanted, a man struck up a conversation in a parking lot over the Route 66 hat my husband was wearing. As his wife was putting her belongings in her Chevy Equinox, she told me how much she loved the car and insisted I sit behind the wheel. I decided if she loved that model, I may also, but new cars were very scarce at that time. I actually bought mine at the same dealer in Conneaut, Ohio as the lady in the parking lot, not because that was my plan, but because they were expecting one in one of the two colors I was looking for. It also had the few options I wanted and they weren’t charging an added fee to the sticker price, like some of the dealers I had spoken with closer to home.

My husband took me to pick up my new car on a dreary fall afternoon. It was getting dark and had begun to rain by the time the paperwork was completed. The salesman followed me outside with intentions of teaching me what I needed to know to drive my new set of wheels. He told me how to start and stop the engine and about the six cameras that were on the exterior and three computers under the hood. We set the forward collision alert and then he moved to how to open and close the sunroof and inner shade. While he sat in the passenger seat explaining the workings of my new purchase, I told him I would figure it out later and wanted to set out on my dark, rainy 90-minute drive.

I had only driven a mile or two when I needed to turn the wipers to a higher setting. I remembered GM had moved the wiper controls away from the turning signal lever to their own lever on the other side of the steering column, but I had to pull into a church parking lot to figure out how to increase the speed to keep up with the water that was running down my windshield. I had been turning on the rear wiper instead of adjusting the front one, but I was comforted to know I could open the roof of my vehicle if I got the notion.

I admit I know very little about what makes a vehicle go aside from gas and oil, but I thought I could drive nearly any car or truck and operate the interior knobs, switches and levers. That all changed that night and I suddenly felt like a little old lady. Heck, I couldn’t even figure out how to change the screen to see how to operate the radio. Little did I know that by wanting a few options, a lot of others came with them, most I didn’t know existed.

When I drove into my garage and the screen on the dash came up showing a view of my car surrounded by my husband’s piles of treasures (junk), I knew I was on my way to a totally new driving experience which at the moment wasn’t pretty.

Two days later, as we headed out for 4-5 weeks of travel, I decided to take along a small booklet titled “Getting to Know Your Equinox.” I figured I would look at the pictures and learn everything I needed to know about my new ride. I never opened the cover once while we were away and since I am not much for learning from a book, I made a plan to learn how to operate three new buttons or levers every time I got in the car. My plan changed when I went to the DMV a day before the Ohio temporary tag expired and learned I had no front license plate bracket. Remembering I had an upcoming appointment in Erie, I needed a bracket and my New Blue didn’t seem to love me like the “Old Girl” had, I made an appointment with the salesman to explain what he wanted to before I drove away on that rainy night six weeks earlier.

After 30 minutes of instruction on what I thought had to be every option and way more than anyone could possibly want, the young salesman told me to slide the screen, which exposed a whole new screen! He then chuckled and told me I would never use it and that he knew little about most of what was on it. Whew!

Up until this point in my life, no vehicle had ever challenged me, but this one was pushing back. Shortly after returning from our trip, I experienced one of the weirdest feelings I have had as a driver. As I was rounding a slight curve, I swore my car’s steering was gently guiding itself. There comes an age when you start wondering if you are slipping and that day was the beginning for me. I was sure I felt what I felt, but cars don’t do that. Or so I thought. When it happened again a few weeks later, I knew it was actually assisting where I didn’t need assistance. The third time it happened, a message came on the screen that read “Take steering” when I had never given up control of the steering! I literally said out loud “I AM steering!”

When I open a back door before getting behind the wheel, I have no problem seeing a message that reminds me to “look in rear seat” when I arrive at my destination. After all, I could have put a child or dog or Great-Aunt Beulah back there and I don’t mind the horn tooting, because I’ve left the remote in the vehicle, because it means my vehicle could be stolen.

I appreciate reminders telling me the surface of the road could be icy when the temperature gets near freezing and was relieved the first time I read the message “Taking your eyes off the road for too long or too often while using this system could cause a crash resulting in injury or death to you or others. Focus your attention on driving” because that was a good sign there was no facial recognition device on board. Surely, someone of my age would not need to be told this. On the other hand, maybe there is a device and it thinks someone of this age does need to be reminded! If I had a teen driver, I could set up an in-vehicle report card. Yes, this really does exist.

If I am leaving something at a friend’s door, the horn tooting twice can be an embarrassment when I exit my vehicle while the engine is running. On the other hand, it may be meant to be a porch pirate alarm.

I should have known my car had OCD when I got the first OnStar report telling me its oil life was 99% when it had been driven a total of 16 miles. I ignored that one tire was down one pound of pressure, but after a few more monthly notifications saying “One or more tires are low and need air. Inflate them to the recommended tire pressure as soon as possible,” I complied and learned it is next to impossible to add just one pound of air.

Seriously, when did the features of a car start telling the driver what to do or make you feel like an unfit owner for not seeing to its needs and meeting every whim? After all, I managed to raise two kids, fostered several others and kept a handful of exchange students out of harm’s way, but I am not a good car mom?

Let me caution anyone who is not familiar with adaptive cruise control, which maintains the distance selected in the forward collision alert setting. In my case three car-lengths. When you realize you are going 50 mph in a 65 mph zone, you may press the gas pedal as you pass the slower moving vehicle before you and find yourself going 82 mph before realizing. Let me just say I met a very kind deputy that day.

I now know I can turn off the noisy alerts, but will admit I am coming to see them as my car saying, “Hey, glad you’re here. Let’s cruise, but remember I’m the boss!”

I do have my limits. If you see a blue Equinox in my front yard with a for sale sign in the window it is because I have gotten the message “Wash me” or “Clean my interior,” but I may have to check out that second screen first.