Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Starting The New Year With A Bang

Actually it was more of a "crash-bang." You guessed it...car accident. Really more of a fender-bender. Except it was the other guy's fender, and the whole passenger side of my car. Nobody hurt, though, so that was good. No angry words, either...he admitted fault right away, and was actually apologetic (yes, apparently some people still apologize these days). It took the policeman nearly 25 minutes to arrive, though, which was annoying, especially since the station was maybe a four-minute ride down the street. We could have driven to them faster.

I haven't used this space as a forum to rant yet, and I don't want to start 2006 by setting a precedent, but I have to say there are an awful lot of bad drivers out there. People, you need to pay attention, and slow down. This was just one accident, but I've seen a good number of near misses out there as well. Grant right of way when you're supposed to. Actually stop at stopsigns, don't just pause, and look both ways before proceeding. If you're leaving a parking lot, you need to stop, regardless of whether or not there's a stopsign. And stop at red lights, even if the car in front of you made it through. It used to be just one car would keep going after the light changed; now I've frequently seen three or four. Driving is not a competition. You don't win if you're fast enough to pull out three seconds before the driver with right of way gets to the intersection. You just create one more person in the world who thinks you're a jerk. So stop it. There's enough people who think that already.

This isn't all aimed at the guy who caused my accident; he clearly did not grant right of way, but he was polite and apologized. And since his insurance company will be paying for the damage to my car, maybe he'll be a little more careful on the roads from now on. The rest of us need to be more careful too.

Be safe out there, everyone.

On a side note, isn't it odd that I feel the need to commend the guy for being polite? One more thing that used to be a given, and now seems like such a rare occurrence that it's considered praise-worthy. Be safe out there, everyone, and also be nice to each other.

Posted by The Gradual Gardener :: 7:41 AM :: 5 Comments:

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