I recognized the tell-tale signs immediately. My car suddenly seemed to lose power, hiccuping once and then coasting to a stop as I steered to safety on the side of Interstate 88.
I tried to start it again, hopeful against experience, but it didn’t work: I was out of gas.
Now, you might wonder how a grown woman with a family and a mortgage could be so familiar with the process of running out of gas on the way to work. I could tell you about the faulty gas gauge on my otherwise perfect car, the fact that I was still discombobulated from having my gall bladder removed a week earlier, the way I had been lulled into a false sense of security by several months with no fuel problems, but those things aren’t important.
What was important was this: I was in a stalled car on the side of a busy tollway, my car shuddering from the force of the vehicles whipping past me. It was windy out and bitterly cold. My stomach hurt.
I heaved a big sigh and pulled out my insurance card so I could call for roadside assistance, going through all the phone trees to talk to someone in another state with maps and GPS devices designed to help her direct a contractor with a full can of gas to my location. After I hung up, knowing I was in for a good hour’s wait, I called work to sheepishly admit that I was going to be late because, well, I am an idiot.
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I was just a hundred yards or so short of my exit (and a gas station), but the vehicles were thundering past me so fast that I felt nervous about being in the car on the side of the road. I got out and walked a few yards away, but the cold wind was making me miserable.
Did I mention that my incisions were aching?
It was just then my guardian angel arrived, driving a red-and-white Illinois Tollway H.E.L.P. truck.
I had seen those trucks previously but assumed they were responding to collisions or serious car problems. But my new best friend, Monroe, explained that while they do respond to emergencies like those, the trucks also patrol the tollway to help out folks who need to jump start batteries, change a tire or add fluid to their radiators.
He even had a can of gas with him that he was more than willing to put into my car for me. When I explained that I needed a special funnel to fill my car from a can and I didn’t seem to have it with me (idiot!), he calmly said he had one of those too.
“How long were you waiting?” he asked me, a hint of worry in his voice. “Only about 10 minutes,” I told him, quickly canceling the service that had just texted me to say gas would arrive in 45 minutes or so.
Monroe explained that he worked for the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority, not the state or a private company, and that any tollway driver who had a car problem could summon help by dialing *999.
The tollway’s website says it deploys 12 trucks from 5 a.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, and that most times a driver responds within 15 minutes. The agency has even launched an online tracker that will tell you where the trucks are and how soon a driver can get to you.
Most services are free, although they do charge $5 for antifreeze and $10 for a can of gas. I actually had a $10 bill in my purse for once, but Monroe said drivers aren’t allowed to take any payment on the road; instead, he gave me a copy of my report and a postage-paid envelope to send the authority a check.
I thanked Monroe several times for his help, but he told me it was a service funded by our toll payments.
“You pay good money to ride these roads,” he said, and I realize how fortunate I had been to run out of gas just shy of my exit rather than on the city street just beyond it.
Monroe had me on my way in just a few minutes, and I resolved to be more careful in the future; after all, I know that fuel gauge doesn’t work right.
But if it should happen again, what will I do? Look up a phone number, go through a phone tree, wait for a dispatcher to locate me and send a truck that won’t arrive for an hour, or punch #999 for Monroe or one of his colleagues?
Come on, even I am not that much of an idiot.
Susan Keaton is a freelance writer who lives in Naperville. She loves to hear from readers, unless you want to lecture her about her fuel gauge or her consumption of high-fat foods. You can reach her at [email protected].