Years ago when I was a scrub reporter on Capitol Hill, I was about to enter a Senate hearing room when a gruff guy wearing an earpiece wired to a walkie-talkie elbowed me aside. Two more linebacker-sized cops cleared the way for Rudy Giuliani, then the mayor of New York. He had come to testify.

I shrugged and followed the phalanx of security types in trademark dark suits. Another day dealing with overprotected politicians.

Rudy’s security detail came to mind when I heard that D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty had ditched his police escort on occasion. Asked why he showed up at a recent public event by himself, behind the wheel of his white Ford Expedition, Fenty said: “Because I can drive.”

The sheer spareness of Fenty’s response speaks volumes about his approach to governing. As a metaphor, it reflects a chief executive who likes to drive the government and the people who run it.

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It also leaves open two questions:

For a politician who schedules so many public events in the day and often hits at least one community meeting a night, will he ever show up on time?

Can he talk on his cell phone and tap away at his Blackberry and not get into a wreck?

At the recently refurbished football field behind Coolidge High last week, I asked Fenty if we could expect to see him driving the city streets by himself from now on. He issued a qualified maybe.

“I’m just doing what I’m used to doing,” he said. I’ve been driving around D.C. my whole life.”

Again, the simple and rational response. But compare this to our experience with Fenty’s predecessors.

In his 16 years as mayor, Marion Barry rarely showed up anywhere without his security detail. Barry seemed to live in the back seat of the city-issue, dark blue Town Car, piloted by a member of his police security detail. The cops delivered Barry to community meetings by day. After dark, when he assumed the role of “Night Owl,” as his ex-wife called him, they dropped him off for assignations.

During Barry’s 1990 trial for cocaine use, investigators testified that members of Barry’s detail delivered envelopes with cash for the mayor’s drugs.

Mayor Anthony Williams made ample use of his security detail, too, but only for official business. He would stride into restaurants and public meetings behind his crisply dressed cops. At times their presence was the only way of knowing Williams had arrived.

Mayor Fenty is not disbanding his security detail or dropping his driver for good. He assured me he’s always in contact with police headquarters when he’s traveling solo. “I will always be in communication with the chief,” he said.

The staff at Indique is not surprised that Fenty can drive himself. He often shows up with his two sons at the Indian restaurant in Cleveland Park, and he leaves with bags of his favorite dishes.

“I don’t need anyone to drive me to Indique,” he said.

hjaffe@washingtonian.com