South City Confessions: Every day is a high stakes battle on the road
A few words after a near-accident. I'm tired of it.
Imagine all the time lost in car accidents. The delays for the dozens of cars waiting behind an accident on the highway. Minutes, hours, and miles are left on the table, never to be used because one person couldn’t remember how to drive properly. These are the kind of things you think about after sitting in traffic on the day job in a box truck, or nearly getting plowed into the sidewalk by someone who failed to wait at a stop sign.
Fun fact: You indeed have to stop at the sign that has a stop sign on it. You have to do it even if the car in front of you stops before going. How many times in a day do you see someone proceeding to skip the stop after having to wait behind the car in front of them? Too damn many is the answer.
Stop signs are too simple to fuck up, my friends. You stop, wait, and go. If there’s no one coming by or you see no other cars that have been waiting, then you go on. Today, strolling down the too popular January Avenue here in Princeton Heights, I came about two or three feet short of getting into an accident. All due to the fact that one jackass who I hope gets a mysterious testicular rash tonight couldn’t wait another few seconds.
That’s all it would have taken for me to get through the intersection of Rhodes and January, on down to my preferred spot next to my house. This happens daily. All the time. It’s not negotiating a speed out there in heavy traffic, or operating in a storm. It’s making a stop, and waiting your turn to go on. People fucking suck at it!
Oh yeah, this is the blog where most of the fancy big words are left in the soon-to-be buried Riverfront Times glossary, and a few curse words are tossed out. Think of it as a stream of consciousness with a conversational tone. In order to push it down and do some man stuff like the great William Burr suggests-act like you have answers or do the right thing-I come here and unload it all. Think of it like a carpool of opinions, mixed in with a few actually important things.
Think of all the time wasted in that potential accident. Insurance cards are exchanged, even if the fault would be in him 100 percent. Evenings would shift, plans would be scrapped, and some kind of hardship would settle in. All for what? A few more seconds saved is good enough for a huge portion of the driving public out there. The roads are full of bad drivers who get worse in rough weather or when a simple decision has to be made.
Every day has become a battle to get out and then get back home with everything in one piece. I don’t drive fast or crazy. A to fucking B, my friends. Still, the amount of accidents out there only gets worse. It’s something you see clearer when it’s part of your job. I ride up higher than most vehicles during the morning, and then take a stroll home closer to the ground with them. Both views are shit.
Do everyone a favor, and stop at the next stop sign. If someone is coming down the road with the right of way, go ahead and proofread that text. Yeah, take the time. Get it right. Look up, check both ways, and go.
So simple, right?