Besides the usual fears that most people have, one I would like to state is the fear of being hit by a texting driver. I am absolutely sick and tired of people who text on the road. At least once a week an oncoming driver with their head down (and obvious signs of texting) drifts left of center and into my lane, sometimes forcing me to blow my horn because they are oblivious to their dreadful conscious state. I have seen multiple times texting drivers at Stop signs unaware they are holding up traffic when there are no cars nearby on the road they are to be pulling on to.
Today for example:
I turn onto a less busy route from where I work. It is a two lane township road in the country with little traffic. The car in front of me turns onto the road. I see a large dog standing in the middle of the road way ahead. Anyone aware of the road in front of them would see it. The car (traveling approximately 30 mph) makes no effort to stop, swerve, or anything as it approaches the dog. The car runs right over top of the dog. The car stops as the dog is writhing back and forth in suffering. After stopping my car many car lengths back, I watch as a distraught lady gets out of the car that hit the dog and approaches the canine. Now I ask, how could she have been so oblivious to a large dog standing in the middle of the road in plain view for several tenths of a mile? One theory is that she was texting. Regardless of the cause of her lack of attention, she apparently had no awareness of the road before her. What if that had been a child?
It's not just texting that distracts drivers, it's also the cell phone. And speaking of cell phones, I took my older son bowling last week, and a man on another lane bowled an entire game while talking on a cell phone.
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"My journey has just begun."
12 Feb 2007, 11:42 pm
