Posted on 09/22/2005 7:38:56 AM PDT by pickrell
On the way to work today, the southbound traffic in Columbus Ohio was held up for miles. Untold fuel was expended and an indeterminable number of persons were late for work, appointments, and other committments. Many minutes later we inched our way past the cause of the delay- two vehicles sitting motionless in the roadway.
You might assume that terrible loss of life had occurred, or the vehicles were wrecked beyond movement. You'd be wrong. The drivers of the 2 vehicles had engaged in a minor fender-bender, and were waiting for the police to arrive unsolicited, so that they could plead their respective cases against insurance payouts.
Drivers in the other lanes were availing themselves of long, delicious "oooh...aaaaah!" gawks to try to snatch a glimpse of blood or absorb dark delight in how bad the accident had been.
Flash forward, (at least back to 45 miles per hour), and read the Drudge Report about a hundred miles of traffic out of Houston locked up to a standstill, and a bad feeling overcomes you.
Can we not agree, as a rational society, that the personal self-absorption manifested by holding up a huge number of people, instead of pulling the vehicles off to the berm, is a bad, perhaps even rotten, thing to do? Could we not further stipulate that the duty of any driver, finding himself in front of a massive contingent of other drivers, is NOT to slow down to a crawl so as to better soak up the carnage, but rather... to drive?
In any major catastrophe, the whole of the people depend on all of the individuals involved exercising reason and prudence in their actions. In future, it should be mandated that any drivers, finding the entire evacuation held up by the mindless actions of a few drivers, should exit their vehicles, firmly escort the brain-dead obstructors to the berm, and push or force the roadblocks out of the way, brooking no argument from the obstructors.
Mercifully, it will play out that other causes brought the evacuation of Houston to a temporary halt. Can you imagine in future if such foolishness caused massive death along the evacuation route because such mindlessness occurred?
I can.
Lingerie. Oh, remember lingerie?
(it's really from Mad Max 2)
Don't touch please, that's a precision instrument.
You're quick, I'll give you that. Never seen a man beat a snake. Never. Reflexes, that's what you've got. Me? I've got brains.
Nothing to do but breed!
Be still my dog of war. I understand your pain. We've all lost someone we love ... But, we do it my way. Fear is our ally. After, you can have your revenge.
Thank goodness! I thought this was another "I hate bicyclists" thread.
Paradise! Two thousand miles from here. Fresh water. Plenty of sunshine. ...
I've sweated blood over this rig and I'm not gonna ride in some lousy schoolbus!
(Who would of thought Ray Nagin was an extra in RW?)
Ah, yes.....but was the person who came to a FULL STOP talking on his (or her) hand-held cell phone -- sharing the details of what it was like to see someone changing a tire on the shoulder with friend?
Don't listen to them! It's bad
enough the lunatics are running the
asylum. Don't let them throw away
the key.
"Sorry, there's no known remedy for stupidity."
Or to put it another way: If stupidity were painful, there’s not enough aspirin to go around.
That one was pretty bad. I think that maybe 5% of the posts had to do with the intersection in question (if you are referring to the San Fran article from yesterday).
Yep, that's the one. The rest had to do with horse trailers, or something :)
Here in the northeast, radio traffic reports call those "rubbernecking" delays.
Negative on the cell phone. This was back around 1989.
It was? I was taught that unless there was severe damage so that you could not move the car, or unless there was a serious injury, that you should get off the road, exchange insurance information, and make a report to the police. The cops are not about to arrive on the scene of a fender bender and do a major accident analysis. In fact, they'll most likely tell you to get the hell out of the traffic lanes.
I learned in a more-or-less rural state.
If you don't, the city will tow your car off the highway and charge you a $100 impoundment fee.
Those affected gripe like hell, but it has certainly cleared up traffic congestion, especially during rush hours.
So did I, but the expectation was always there that for accidents not involving serious injuries or major damage that the parties involved would make a report to the police themselves if the damage was over $500. I've been both the cause and the victim of fender benders a few times and I never expected the cops to show up. I had better things to do than wait for a cop to drive by, anyway.
It's theoretically possible to have that, the only problem with that math would be that if those numbers hold true, then, we only have 10% conservatives in the country. ;)
Paul
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