Galloping to the Graveyard

June 24, 1999

I live in a place where people seem to worship the automobile. No, it's not in southern California, but it is a fast place, a very fast place.

Recently the police set up a sting on a major highway through town, and only stopped people who were going in excess of 80 in a 65 zone, because they had more than their hands full with just that group.

Ok, so what's the rush? Really?

Maybe I am just getting old, maybe it is because I have seen or been in too many automobile accidents.

I have watched at least three occur before my very eyes, the latest was Tuesday afternoon. I have been hit 6 times, 3 majors, 2 minors, and one boy on a bike. He is his own story, but the whole thing came back to me again Tuesday.

Early in the morning I pulled out of a parking lot to merge into traffic and make a left turn. I was only a couple of hundred feet from the traffic light. It was red. You know the color, the one that means stop?

So, I figure, I can pull out and perhaps the folks approaching the light will let me cross their lanes.

Wrong.

I almost got my front end taken off by a Suva - That's sport utility asshole - a term I coined after seeing tons of them in the ditches here in the winter. This guy was flying down the road, and only had to slam on his brakes only seconds later.

So... the hurry to stop at the light is?

Then later in the afternoon another monster vehicle, a customized pick up truck costing in the $50,000 range, ran a Ford Escort off the road, over a curb and into a road sign. All because he did not look and was in a hurry.

His license plate was customized and it read THC.

For those of you who don't know, THC is the active ingredient in marijuana.

So go figure that one out...Who could be so stupid as to put that on their car, and then run people off the road.

Every day on my way to work I pass a cemetery that has been there for over 200 years. I notice some of the gravestones from time to time, and see names of people who now have towns named after them. But guess what, they are not going anywhere. There they lie, at a dead stop.

Makes me wonder.

Did eternity get designed so we might be forced to stop... and feed the roses?