Look both ways before crossing the street
I watched the light turn red for cross traffic, checked my review mirrors for idiots trying to beat the light and not seeing my paltry rear tailight on my Buell and started to ease out the clutch to cross U.S. 29 when I heard a familiar sound.
I’ve been driving a long time, since 1974 in fact. I’ve been in two accidents—both backing up. I’ve driven just a tick or two over a million miles. I know the sound of a loaded semi gearing down and hammering the pedal so I pulled the clutch in and stopped. Two cars next to me also stopped and we watched with great awe as a steak-laden 18-er rolled through the intersection in clear violation of the traffic control signal.
Some time ago, a teen-ager named Sydney was slammed into by a trucker beating a light farther on up the road and killed. There, but for years of experience and motorcycle-born mistrust of anyone not on two wheels, would I have gone and maybe the guy in the Chevy next to me or the Toyota next to him.
I know a few things about pulling weight and rolling down the road and I understand that it’s hard to brake down 30,000 pounds of angus steak when a light turns yellow. I heard the truck begin to stop and then accelerate as the driver realized there was no way he could stop the hauler before the intersection. Luckily, traffic was light and we were paying attention.
Were we new drivers, inexperienced drivers, a disaster may have ensued.
Please, if you’re riding the big rig, keep it down below legal speeds until you clear the intersections. There are no clear stretches of U.S. 29 until you get between Ruckersville and Madison and there’s a lot of newbies behind the wheels. And, should you be driving on four wheels or two, remember what your mama told you when you learned your first traffic lesson: Look both ways before you cross the street.
The life you save may be someone you love.
Posted by Bryan McKenzie at 06:45 AM. Filed under: Daily Screed •
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Posted by ( ) on November 15, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Hello Bryan
First time and want to note that guys like you always winded up in Ch’ville…Been happening for a long, long time. Must be something in the water!
Liked your piece on driving and all and there is a total lack of drivers doing what they should while behind the wheel….DRIVING.
You see them doing this and doing that…BUT not paying attention to the road. I swear, I want to get out of my vehicle and walk over and throttle them where they are sitting… I know I can’t do this, but I want to.
I want to mention that age has a bearing on this, I think, but I learned, by mistakes and such, that when you are behind the wheel of a vehicle, you could cause someone to die. That said, I would wish that everyone that is a licensed driver to think twice when doing anything in their vehicles.
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