Don't Let This Be You!

[sd gross]

It happened again yesterday - an idiot in a beige Volvo station wagon this time, driving as though the line of cars waiting for the stoplight to change At Hurlbut Rd and Hwy 116 south bound were slalom poles. He/she flew by waving a tiny piece of paper out the drivers-side window (perhaps incidental to his/her one-finger salute?) - Or a letter from his Mum perhaps, explaining he's driving a 'medical emergency to Palm Drive or some such. Happens all the time - much too often in fact. I've written letters asking local "authorities" to address this sometimes scary problem, but other than seeing a few of my words appear in newsprint, not much has been done to change anything.

The stretch of Hwy 116 that leads south to the Metropoli of Cotati and Penngrove has turned into an Uber-Causeway, a la the Autobahn with out-of control Big Iron rushing heedlessly, as if fighting to not be sucked over the edge of an event horizon. I don't exactly plod along myself, but at least I try to keep my eyes open. But making a left turn out of G-WIZ Graphics driveway is implausible, if not impossible.

With regularity, I read about law enforcement folk making presentations at local high school, middle schools and Kiwanis gatherings, the focus of which is "watch it, or this could happen to you", replete with charts, graphs and pictures. Those audience members who are attentive and/or responsible might try to sharpen their focus but most people don't much care. It's like when we read Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle", we all became vegetarians for two weeks. But (for most of us) how long did that last?

A few years ago I interviewed witnesses at an accident scene on Hwy 116 about 2 miles west of Monte Rio. An eastbound San Francisco police sergeant was passing cars in his Corvette, driving between 90 and 100 MPH (said witnesses), when he attempted to pull back into the eastbound lane. His Chevvy fishtailed and losing control, he plowed into a Ford pick up truck headed west at about 50 MPH. The Corvette melted, turning into a barely visible pool under the Ford's front bumper.

I had my camera and with my stomach knotting I took a few pictures.

Please, dear WaccoVians, don't let this happen to you.

hugs
stephen

[Roland Jacopetti]

Yikes! Pretty awful. I saw and read this after reading about how administration critics are whining about how new regulation for cars will cause more accidents because the new small buggies will cave in on impact. Doesn't anyone believe it's possible to drive slower? It's increasingly terrifying to drive on 101 at 65-70, with one after the other gigantic vehicles blowing by like you're standing still. The sight of a Prius or other hybrid zipping in and out of traffic, burning gas as fast as its environmentally-friendly engine can turn over is also a diversion on the freeway journeys. Slow down! Lower the speed limit to 55! Or lower! Put governors on cars (not the Schwartzenegger type)! Thanks for allowing an old dude to grumble.
Roland

[capttankona]

If only humans acted rationally, instead of rationalizing. Oh well, I guess part of being human is making stupid mistakes. Some that cost us our lives. It is just to bad that we don't all have a government official to sit behind the wheel of our car or in the passenger seats to make sure we are all safe and sane.

[Roland Jacopetti]

Oh, no! That's all I need...being driven around by a bureaucrat-chauffeur. They can't find crucial parts of their anatomies with both hands - why should I trust them to get me on and off the freeway alive?
Roland

[podfish]

Don't fool yourself into thinking that you're on the side of the angels in any issue regarding driving. It's all a matter of degree. ANY motor vehicle use is somewhat destructive to the environment, so the line between "reasonable use" and "wasteful use" is pretty damn arbitrary. As far as "drive slower!" goes - as George Carlin said, anyone who drives slower than you is a moron, but anyone faster is a maniac.
And - I guess a (not so) new criticism of the proposed car regulations is that it will encourage too many small cars, which are less safe than big cars. To state the obvious, "small" is a relative term.
I was impressed by the honesty of some mid-western Republican, shown in a clip on the Daily Show, who said (in effect) "what, so we're not free to CHOOSE to drive a gas guzzler" here in America!! An amazing number of people have a hard time being that clear about taking their biases to their logical conclusions. Vehicle use is so deeply woven into our society and has been for so long that we just repeatedly nibble at the status quo. It might be nice to save some gas by slowing down. But what's special about 55? Why is that the right compromise between time spent on the road vs. gas used? Why is a big SUV at least somewhat ok, but driving semi cabs for personal around-the-town use would seem excessive? Why have we as a society tolerated a setup where to be employed you pretty much have to spend several thousand a year to own and operate a car?
Someday this whole era of personal motor vehicles is going to seem pretty whacky....

[Roland Jacopetti]

As usual, George Carlin was absolutely right!
Roland

Don't fool yourself into thinking that you're on the side of the angels in any issue regarding driving. It's all a matter of degree. ANY motor vehicle use is somewhat destructive to the environment, so the line between "reasonable use" and "wasteful use" is pretty damn arbitrary. As far as "drive slower!" goes - as George Carlin said, anyone who drives slower than you is a moron, but anyone faster is a maniac....

[pbrinton]

This is a misleading statement. Small cars are not inherently less safe than big cars. What makes small cars less safe (for the occupants) is the proliferation of big cars. In a collision between a small car and a big car, all other things being equal the occupants of the small car are likely to come off worse than the occupants of the big car. One might therefore say that the person driving the small car increased the safety potential of the occupant(s) of the big car.

Or to put it another way, people driving small cars are sacrificing some of their own safety while increasing that of the other users of the road (altruistic behavior), whereas drivers of big cars are increasing their own safety at the expense of the occupants of small cars (selfish behavior.)

I realize that some people feel the need to drive larger vehicles for various (and sometimes even valid) reasons, so all of the above should be read with the aforementioned caution "all other things being equal"! If you really have seven children and a farm or whatever, then by all means drive a large vehicle, but please recognize your increased duty to be careful of the safety of others that you are endangering by virtue of the size of your vehicle. However the number of times I see gigantic pickup trucks with crew cabs and 8-foot beds being driven by one person alone inside leads me to believe that few can really make this claim.

While I am on a roll here I would like to put in a pitch for standardized bumper and headlight heights. The whole point of bumpers is mutual protection; if your huge bumper hits my small car above the height of my bumper, it becomes a weapon instead of a protective device. And I cannot count the number of times I have been followed by a vehicle whose headlights shine directly into my back window, blinding me even when dimmed. And I do not drive a particularly low-slung car.

OK, done for now.

Patrick Brinton

And - I guess a (not so) new criticism of the proposed car regulations is that it will encourage too many small cars, which are less safe than big cars.

[Roland Jacopetti]

Interesting observations, Patrick. I've just realized (to my horror) that I've been driving cars for over fifty years, and I'm still in pretty good shape, an observant driver, possessing most of my original marbles. I think I'd feel quite safe being a passenger in a car with me at the wheel. So I think I have good intuition about many of the factors that constitute unsafe driving. That's why I'm discomfited when I see behemoth-mobiles (some of which have "Toyota" identifying them), first in my rearview mirror, inches away from my rear end, flipping me the bird as I drive along in the far right lane at 65-70 mph on the freeway, then swerving around me, passing at 75-85 or faster, and flipping the same bird, in case I missed the first one. Lately, I've begun to see 18-wheelers doing the same stuff. Maybe I'm just indulging in curmudgeonism, but I really seem to see lots more of this lately, so much so that, grumbling inwardly, I often encourage the perps to speed up, wind up the revs more, buy a bigger vehicle, so we can finally use up all that pesky fossil fuel. See yah on the racetrack.
Roland