> I think we need a new campaign similar to DUI. Call it DWS - driving
> while stupid...
It's everywhere. With all the obsession about speed as the enemy of
safety, and the regular public campaigns warning (rightly so) against
driving after drinking, general stupidity somehow escapes people as a
problem on the road, with groups like this bunch being refreshing, but
unfortunately rare exceptions. The sad fact of all this here in our
little discussion group is that it can all be filed under the heading
"preaching to the choir".
Here's one that just happened to me about an hour ago, though, so
reading the recent messages upon coming home makes me want to share the
story.
Setting. I'm heading home from work, just after sunset. It's just after
5pm, so the traffic is the usual maddening chaos cluster. A light rain
has been falling for a while, and it's around 50 degrees. If anybody
does anything stupid at the last second as they near you, good luck
having enough grip to do much. The worst is, sometimes even having
plenty of grip won't help.
I needed to stop off at my car insurance agent's office. I waited at a
stoplight sitting on a lightly traveled sidestreet. The light turned
green, and I turned north on to the four lane plus center turn lane main
drag that my agent's office is on.
There is no traffic approaching on the southbound side of the road
heading toward me. There was nobody behind me at the earlier sidestreet
stop, and the northbound traffic on the main drag is, of course, now
stopped for what is now a red light in that direction. It's a clear road
except me and my lone Nissan.
I travel a couple hundred feet north on Main Drag, flip on the left
blinker, and move into the center turn lane, slowing down and preparing
to turn into my agent's driveway on the west side of the road. Directly
across from that driveway is a sidestreet, forming a "T" intersection
with The Main Drag with my agent's driveway being right in line with it.
Naturally, the side street has a stop sign.
As I'm just about to turn left into the driveway, suddenly the Neon that
was at the stop sign on the opposite sidestreet is coming out at me,
arcing across the road, turning left to head south. Coming right at me.
Instead of braking and turning, I'm suddenly forced to completely stop
to avoid a collision. Fortunately so does the Neon. There I am sitting
still straight and square in the center turn lane, with a Neon sitting
crosswise, nose to nose with my car. There's nobody else near, so no
pressure or imminent drama. There certainly was no situation where the
traffic was so heavy that a frustrated driver stuck at a stop sign and
in a hurry would feel like they had to try shooting through any brief
hole in the traffic.
The Neon is stopped now. I marvel for a moment that the idiot has just
driven from a stop at a stop sign across the path of a car on a main
road, I see they've stopped, and I slip the clutch to start moving and
complete my turn, glad that Stupid finally had their eyesight return or
just realized their mistake. As soon as the clutch begins to engage and
my car begins to move, the Neon has started moving again! I quickly hit
the clutch and the brake again. The Neon stops, having realized I was
moving. This time I flickered the high beams, hit the horn button, and
shouted as loudly as possible "STOP, you f****** IDIOT, just STOP!!!".
The Neon ceased motion, and appeared to be staying that way for a
moment, so I got on it and made the turn into the driveway, stunned by
the mind blowing stupidity of the scene, and pondering the irony of this
happening at the end of my car insurance agent's driveway. My insurance
agent (a serious car guy, incidentally), was impressed when I told him
about it, showing what could only be described as sad resignation while
commenting that, yes, it's pretty bad out there with The Dopes.
The main moral of the story? Well, it seems clear that there are an
unbelievable number of people licenced to drive automobiles who have
absolutely no clue about the rules of right of way. Zero. Not a glimmer.
The worst of all this is that I can just imagine the primate at the
controls of the Neon getting to their destination and telling whoever
was there about how some idiot driver almost hit them.
JLE
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