Columnist Susan Snyder: Taking a course on the road

Monday, July 7, 2003 | 8:09 a.m.

We were supposed to travel to Panaca in this spot today.

But we got a flat tire on the highway last week instead, which led to the purchase of three new tires. We were not happy. And we never made it to Panaca.

Ah well. We'll be there another day.

Today many of us are recovering from a three-day holiday weekend that included traveling out of town for more than 37 million people, according to AAA. Early estimates showed that, nationally, travel on the Independence Day weekend could reach its highest point in nine years.

At our house, the itinerary started with the Boulder City Damboree Parade Friday, followed by a trip to Southern California to freeload -- I mean, visit family and friends. The Cat, of course, stayed home. Fireworks aren't his bag. He hides when we pull the vacuum out of the closet.

The number of people switching places in Las Vegas and Southern California on any given weekend should create some kind of vacuum. It should have created an earthquake this past one.

A Los Angeles Daily News story Friday predicted a large portion of the 2.7 million Southern Californians expected to drive more than 50 miles for the holiday were coming to Las Vegas.

Wonder how many of them broke down on Interstate 15 along the way? It's pretty safe to say that more tow trucks were called out to that stretch of I-15 than to any other section of highway in Nevada, Lisa Foster, spokeswoman for AAA Nevada, said.

The I-15 corridor between Las Vegas and California receives the most calls for AAA assistance, Foster said. The section from Las Vegas to Utah receives the second-highest number.

Inside the valley, AAA receives an average of 829 roadside assistance calls a month along the Strip from its north end to Russell Road. And calls across the valley typically double in summer, to 14,000 a month.

"We have a battery service truck stocked with batteries that goes out just for battery problems," Foster said. "The road between Las Vegas and Phoenix is the highest in the country when it comes to battery calls because of the heat. Heat really drains batteries."

Heat-related maladies, from battery and electrical system problems to engine computer blips, account for 64 percent of AAA's roadside calls in Southern Nevada.

Still, some of the calls are for reasons that sound more urban myth than truth. For example, Foster said AAA receives several calls annually from Las Vegas Valley motorists who claim they are locked inside their vehicles because the car battery is dead, and they have electronic locks triggered by key-chain buttons.

"They're panicking in the heat," she said. "They've forgotten they can reach up and pull up the button."

Another customer accused the AAA tow of balding the tires on his car -- a claim that would have seemed more plausible if the customer's vehicle hadn't been transported on a flatbed without so much as an inch of tire anywhere near the pavement.

About 15 percent of calls for assistance are from people such as me, who refuse to change their own tires.

Membership has its privileges. I don't do sweat, and I'm allergic to nuts of the lug variety.

Auto and AAA willing, we will be traveling some place interesting next Monday.