CORRECT ME IF I’M WRONG! 11th Edition June 14, 2013
By author
Bryce A Baker
ROAD
RAGING 101
In the beginning of my career, my duties included
motor vehicle accident investigation. To those that don’t know what that is, it
involves scene evaluation, witness interviews, interviews of the involved
parties and the physical engineering behind the accident itself. Now to have a
detailed investigation called, it meant there was a fatality. It was a gruesome
duty but because of my mechanical skills it was my first posting.
The reason for this subject has been brought through constant criticism from my wife about my constant criticism of dangerous drivers. Understandably we have all gone through driving stages of stupidity but after dealing with the horrors, I find some drivers just haven’t got a clue that they are not immortal and the weapon they drive is lethal. I don’t have to describe these acts of IQ less donuts. It’s like watching an unknowing child taunt a two ton chunk of steel and not heeding warnings that it is dangerous. No matter how many lectures I and others have given to teenage school kids, they still don’t get the picture.
It is an ordeal for my wife to take me to the
grocery store. It seems they… the navigators of the shopping carts, bring their
driving skills into the store with them. Blinders on, petal to the metal and
hell bent for the next item on the shopping list. They take NO prisoners and
fail to understand that dragging me under their grocery laden cart is not
acceptable to my fragile state of mind. I feel like shooting out their tires. Maybe
we need grocery cart police.
My pet peeve is tailgaters. When I rode motor bike
they thought that the closer they got to my tail light the more they loved me,
but after taking a hand full of marbles across their windshield the romance
ended. I know it was improper of me to use marbles but ball bearings were too
expensive.
Seniors and driving… I have to be careful what I
say, but I am proud of my mom who is fully capable of safely driving but feels
the roads are just too crazy for her to add to it. Kidding she is a good
driver… Taking the freedom of mobility away from someone in their senior years
is a brutal decision. They need to evaluate when it is time to park the covered
wagon and take the trolley. I responded to a minor accident one time that
involved an eighty five year old lady driving a big old Cadillac. She
approached a courtesy intersection and failed to yield to the vehicle
approaching from the right. She toasted the other vehicle. When I asked why she
didn’t yield right, she replied that since she had the bigger vehicle, she had
the right of way. One would assume with years of experience, common sense might
be a small factor in the equation.
Just today on the highway a vehicle approached me
from the rear and tailgated. Speed of the traffic was 90 to 100 km an hour. I
moved over to let her pass. As she passed I noticed a young child in the front
seat and a younger one in the back child seat. She took off like a shot with
speeds in excess of 120. A truck was slowing for a 50 km an hour construction
zone and she ever so slightly avoided a rear end collision. Now it is bad
enough to be young and speed obsessed but this ‘woman’… put two young lives at
risk and for what!? Let her talk to the families of road carnage and see how
her actions are no different than putting a gun to someone’s head.
We all make mistakes while driving but
premeditated idiocy should be grounds for sending them back to kindergarten and
learn from the children.
WOW does that feel good venting ever so slightly.
Now I can travel with my wife on our next trip with a revitalized verbal
assault on the stupid, lame, dirt bags that jeopardize everyone’s safety!!
Please... CORRECT ME IF I’M WRONG!
By Bryce A Baker
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