I quit while I was ahead, before I had any serious accidents, before I put other other road users and myself in harm's way. The body work of my car had a few dents and scratches due to minor errors of judgement when parking, not to violent encounters with other cars. Those dents and scratches are the tell-tale evidence of age-related decline in my judgement of distance, warning signals I probably ignored for a few years longer than was wise.
I've been driving since I was about 14-15 and have innumerable happy memories, as well as a tiny handful of unhappy ones. Memories of exploring Scotland and England, Canada and USA, Australia and New Zealand, from behind the steering wheel (actually, a less than perfect perspective because the driver must watch the road and traffic on it, not the scenery). Yet I was able to see much spectacular scenery in many parts of the world, often pausing on our travels so all of us in the family could admire it.
There's another set of memories too. I belong to the generation that conducted courtship in the privacy of a car. I did a bit more: I met the love of my life when I picked up a pair of young women who were hitch hiking, as I've related more than once in earlier posts on this blog. Those memories too are very pleasurable, and I'll treasure them along with all the other pleasurable memories I can call upon. I forget who said it and forget the elegant phrases in which the sentiment was couched, but I'm finding as many others before me have found, that a large part of what is pleasurable about growing old is in the life of the mind and all the memories stored in the mind. My long, eventful, worthwhile life has allowed me to accumulate rich tapestries, vast continents of meaningful memories. Almost all of them are happy memories. Either only a tiny minority are unhappy, or I am blessed with the capacity to remember happy events and times,to forget and suppress unhappy ones. I am profoundly grateful for this fact.
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