Even before two young women lost their lives on Route 115 in Bear Creek recently, I had been thinking a lot about driving.
Is just me or is driving like something out of a Mad Max movie these days? Some days, I think people are trying to hitch a ride in my trunk as I sashay from one end of town to the other. One phrase always comes to mind when I have a yahoo two inches from my license plate: An emergency on your part doesn’t constitute one on mine.
Unless you’re headed to the hospital to receive a kidney transplant or give birth, what in the world is so important that you would mow down a complete stranger to achieve your need for speed? Do you need to Facebook? Are you late for “Avatar” in 3D? Do you need a snow cone?
In fact, I remember going to the hospital a few times to give birth and nobody was in too much of a hurry to get there. What’s your hurry?
As my caller Connie would say, “Let me clue ya.” There is nothing wrong with driving the speed limit. To me, this applies mostly in our neighborhoods, where cats and kids are known to pop out occasionally from strange places and into your path. Last winter, my husband and I were coming home on a street near our house and I was driving. There was an unconscious teenager on the side of the road who had been knocked silly from flying off a bicycle. A speeding, careless yahoo (see above) could have run over this poor kid. Instead, we called an ambulance and the girl was off to the hospital. I think about that in my mind many times when I’m driving up that street. I wonder what the images in the heads of EMTs who respond to these things. Anyone want to share?
I bet the people who travel on 115 every day look at those little roadside memorials and wonder who they represent. I hope they remember their mother-to-be on her way to a pre-natal appointment. I’m hoping they hit the brakes near the Bear Creek Charter School, where a mother of two who got that school off the ground was killed in a grinding accident.
The other day, I suggested something should be done, like a day when everyone observes the speed limit. Just for one day, like the Great American Smoke Out makes people think about cigarettes just for one day. Hugh emailed me a suggestion I like as a name for this day when we lay off the gas and enjoy the ride: The Great American Back-Off. Maybe you’ve seen those Yosemite Sam mudflaps on people’s cars with that phrase. He has two pistols drawn as he makes the suggestion. Some days, I can see his point. Back off? I can back that.
Corbett
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