* ONE WAY-DEAD END

We have all driven down them. They are everywhere. Often times with the radio blasting out your favorite tune, the sun shining and the temperature perfect we drive down them. Sometimes we drive down them just to see how far they go, to see where they lead, and to find out what the end looks like. In general they all share two things in common. They end and you have to turn around to get back to where you started from.

Now I'm not talking about your every day run of the mill mistake dead end. We've all been there, made the wrong turn, missed the sign and drove along until we run into the wall at the end. Nothing ventured nothing gained. In most cases your not going that fast by the time you reach it so you have time to break and get ready to make the moves necessary to turn around and make the journey back from whence you came. There are the other type of dead ends which can prove to be much more difficult to navigate and to return from without doing serious damage to yourself,your car and potentially others.

This type of dead end is where the road is new or reworked, unfortunately when this happened someone forgot to move the dead end sign back to the start of the road. The road having undergone some slight modifications or reworking is not really anything more then it originally was except its missing the sign. The sign is now a little ways down the road. As you drive happily along you eventually, sometime unexpectedly come to the sign. As a general rule our instincts DON'T take over and we continue driving although perhaps with a little weariness. As we drive on the road gets a little rougher and we begin to question turning back but the foot stays on the gas with the in-trenched belief that things will smooth out and if they forgot to move the sign to the start of the road perhaps its really not a dead end after all. As the ride continues the road gets even more bumpy and it starts to go down a hill. As you begin to step on the break you realize the car isn't slowing down and the road is getting way harder to navigate and the car is losing control. Now with fear beginning to take hold you start to realize that you should have stopped the car along time ago and turned around...but! As you begin to gain more and more speed you begin to see the road is in fact a dead end and there is a wall quickly approaching...my God what do you do now?

Well my friends this story has perhaps as many ending as it has beginnings. You see nothing is written for sure until the car is smashed into a million pieces at the bottom of the dead end. There are always ways..hopefully to regain control and to stop the car before it hits. The reality is that its not easy, allot goes on between the time you saw the sign and the time you see the dead end wall. Time is invested, adjustments are made, the car is fixed only to break again, we wax and wash it but it always gets dirty again, the tires wear out but we drive with them on just the same, the radio plays the same 3 songs over and over again. We take it to the dealership with the intention of trading it in but always find a reason to not do it. Eventually the car cannot withstand the bumps, the hill nor the speed and disaster looms.

Stepping aside from the disaster requires courage. It requires a rethinking of what kind of car we drive, how fast we go, where is the ultimate destination. Do we like stable reliable cars or fast hard driving out of control cars. Do we want a diesel or gas car. Do you need 4 wheel drive or will 2 do the trick. Luxury or economy? Can we change our minds half journey? All good questions with one major problem. By the time you realize you need to turn around your going to be so far down the road that your going to pay a really, really big price to turn that baby around and find your way back to where you started so that you can potentially find a new road to your destination. Everyone can get trapped going down one of these roads, EVERYONE. They are hard to avoid, they are even tempting. In fact they are easy and thats the trap..they become so easy we lower our defenses and we coast along because its easy...and easy is good...but often not so good..its an oxymoron.

Sometimes unfortunately once at the end of the road the car won't have the strength to go back to where it started even if you managed to avoid smashing into the wall. Many times the car will simply stop at the bottom of the road and the journey is pretty much finished. You simply accept where you are and decide to hang out there for the rest of your driving days as its much easier then the alternative (walking home). At which point your in a situation which is best described as follows.

''Sorry but you can't get there from here'' and hope the hell the walk isn't that far and that someone can find you and comes to pick you up.