PICTURE this: you put a quarter in a vending machine to buy a soda, a car key pops out instead. There’s no one around, it’s in the thick of the night and all you see is a shining Mercedes standing on the curb. You turn on the car lights with the key’s remote, open the door and drive away: dazed, deranged and delighted.

Does this really come to pass in the land of endless opportunities?

No. It’s just a gimmick. I call it cruel. “It hasn’t happened yet, but it will one day,” is the punchline for this particular advertisement. The snooty marketing moguls with million-dollar budgets at Madison Avenue are burning the midnight oil producing ads that trap buyers into buying cars before this year is out. It’s holiday season and Americans with deep pockets or those who make do with plastic money to pay later are being targeted like crazy.

Lexus (the same car that Nawabzada Nasrullah briefly flirted with as the chair of the Kashmir Committee) ads show a dog holding a key in his mouth and going to his owner, while the husband watches from a distance. Or a wife (and she’s black, that means they, too, have buying power) presenting her husband with a tiny box with a Lexus pompon and its key in it. Overjoyed, that’s the message.

Then there’s the ad for the mini-van, beloved of suburban soccer moms on their cell phones, gallivanting around the whole day, lugging kids and stuff from place to place. Now their husbands are being handed a message: if your mother-in-law is a pain in the neck and makes a nuisance of herself in the car, you can shut her up by shoving her right at the rear end of the car where her ranting will be out of your earshot! How convenient.

Rock ‘n’ roll was born in a car. Fifty years ago, Ike Turner composed Rocket 88 inside a Buick carrying the Kings of Rhythm through the Mississippi delta. En route, the band’s amplifier fell from the car roof on to the pavement and thus was born the muffled tone that became the signature of early rock records.

But recently, a lover of Porsche who had always dreamt of owning one, was shocked beyond belief when Porsche came out with an SUV (sports utility vehicle) as ugly as sin. “It’s a stupid idea conceived by chimps. It will forever cheapen the brand.”

The SUVs — better known in Pakistan as Pajeros and Land Cruisers — have killed tradition and harboured a distasteful breed of drivers such as waderas, seths, nawabzadas, khanzadas, sahibzadas and yahoos. The yuppie dilettantes at the banks and multinationals included. America is no different.

The stark difference, however, shows up before you step on the pedal in the US as opposed to back home. Here, a driver’s license is as precious as life. If you’re caught dead without it, that’s the end of your passport to mobility on America’s highways. Even if you need to make a quick trip to the nearby newsstand to pick up a paper and are not carrying your purse, heaven forbid should a cop cross your path!

Getting a driver’s license is no brain surgery. All you need is to be a good parrot and memorize the answers on driving rules and make sure you get at least 30 out of 36 right in the written test (sorry, there’s no scope for cheating as you can’t take your pharrah inside). If you fail, you go next week and sit for it.

I know of a Pakistani woman who failed the test seven times before clearing it. The driver’s test got my nerves all jangled up, despite having driven for over 30 years in Pakistan. The worst part is trying to remember that you have to drive on the right side of the road (once, I almost forgot and merrily went on the left, thinking I was in Pakistan and was saved by a hair’s breadth when a very angry driver coming from the opposite side honked and braked at the same time. Fortunately, his brakes were good).

My moment of Zen: when my examiner passed me after making me drive the car for 20 minutes and getting me to do a 3-way-turn; parallel parking (without hitting the curb or the orange cones); reversing; halting at a stop sign and, of course, buckling up. One of the cardinal rules for the driver is to tell his co-passenger to use the belt. If he doesn’t, he’s toast. Therefore, with a cheesy smile, before turning the ignition on, I told my examiner from the Motor Vehicle Services (MVS) to use the belt. “I can’t,” said the gadfly, and pointed to his girth. This sure was a catch 22 for me — damned if I refused to drive and damned if I did drive, either way I was the scofflaw.

American highways have been designed for disciplined drivers. Other than the white dividers demarcating lanes, you have the whole wide road to straddle, but not without risking your neck! It’s amazing how people drive so fast and yet stick to their lanes.

Changing lanes is the most hazardous part for a desi driver like me who didn’t know that cars come with side mirrors, until I landed in the US. It can kill you if you try going into a lane without looking first if there’s a car behind. I missed narrowly several times and even now forget to look closely in the side mirrors for blind spots.

As in American accent, the rolling of the r’s can never be developed at a later age. Similarly, driving instincts, too, have to be honed in early. In Pakistan, we drive like bullies, thinking the road belongs to us and we have the right of way, no matter what. We jostle, jump red lights, overtake at will, honk when we feel like, reflexively rev up our engine and generally fend for ourselves without bothering about other motorists.

While it’s too late to teach the old, we could tame the young and teach them early in life how to be disciplined drivers back home. If our skewed-up legal system and the thoroughly corrupt Pakistani police won’t haul traffic violators, at least, the teachers can ground a sense of respect for the law in their students.

In the US, schools help 12th graders to obtain licenses (they have to be seventeen), shepherding them on the roads. The young minds are bedrocked in the belief that laws must never be broken. Overspeeding, littering, not using the seat belt and driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs is simply not permitted. Should they get caught, they can go to jail or have their license revoked.

Despite all the discipline, there are many highway deaths every year. Recently, an 80-year-old grandma ploughed into seven people. Drivers do loopy things, some get away others get netted. But today, the all-American ‘road rage’ with all its anger and aggression is fast drawing fire from saner elements.