Back To The Traffic

Note: This is somewhat of a rant, but my intentions are to assist in waking-up my handful of faithful readers to a very real danger that I believe most of us rarely, if ever, take into consideration.

After reading "the paper" this morning (The Paper: a daily publication printed on actual paper used as a method for keeping people informed of local as well as world wide happenings), it occurred to me that there's a group of people we should all be afraid of. It makes sense to be vigilant regarding potential low life dirt bags who are intent on doing you harm: they exist. We should be very concerned about the the Taliban, Isis, and the so-called "Islamic State extremist" and the very real potential of their reach into each of our personal worlds (if you don't believe these guys would gladly give their life to kill you and every member of your family, giving the opportunity, you're naive...in my not so humble opinion). As well, it makes sense to be on guard for the regular old every day rapist, murderers and sexual predators who don't necessarily affiliate with any particular religious organization. But, the people we should all be the most afraid of, are people who drive cars. Let me just give you 2 quick examples:

A few weeks ago, my neighbor Ray and I were standing at the very edge of our neighborhood street in front of our adjacent homes (and I mean the very edge-had we been any more at the edge of the street we would have been standing in my yard), and a car came driving by from behind me. I didn't hear the car and Ray didn't see it, until it literally brushed my shirt sleeve with it's side view mirror. The car didn't slow down and judging by their tail lights, the driver never even touched their brake pedal. The driver never looked up and apparently had no idea they nearly killed 2 regular guys. My guess (and I bet I'm right) is they didn't see us because they were busy with their handheld device: possibly checking face book, exchanging text messages or maybe shopping Amazon for a new handheld device. I exaggerate not when I say that Ray and I both came within no more than a few inches of dying that day. And the person who almost killed us both, was apparently oblivious to the entire occurrence.
As a note, how ironic would it have been that a purple heart Marine veteran of the Korean war, a retired firefighter, and multiple heart attack survivor (all the same guy) would have ended dying at the hands of a presumed text messaging car driver!

I thought about my recent brush with death this morning when I read a side-bar headline on the front page of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette about a guy who was arrested for driving "quickly and erratically" before running off the road and killing a man who was mowing his yard. Wade McElroy of Monticello, Mississippi was killed while mowing his yard, by a young man driving a motor vehicle. The paper didn't state why the man ran off the road (smart phone?), but regardless of the reason, it's probably safe to say the young man who killed Mr. McElroy, was likely preoccupied. Which brings me to the point of this post:

I am amazed at how often I see someone riding a bike, walking, jogging, pushing a baby stroller etc with their back to vehicular traffic. In many cases, these oncoming vehicles are no more than a few feet away from the naive pedestrian. When I see this (which is every single day of my life) I'm reminded how naive most of us are when it comes to trusting complete strangers. When you factor in the number of folks who are driving impaired due to alcohol or drugs, mental anguish and so on, the ridiculousness of our naiveté goes way up the scale of "redicularity". And what about the folks who are driving these multi-ton battering rams on wheels AT YOUR BACK while eating their breakfast, lunch or dinner, putting on their makeup or just admiring their sexy self in the rearview mirror. These mostly otherwise fine folks are accidents waiting to happen. I simply find this "back to the traffic" concept amazing!

Bottom line: A person with their back to the traffic who is killed by a text messaging driver of a motor vehicle, is no less dead than the poor souls who have recently been murdered by the various misguided lunatic Islamic groups. Please don't be a statistic. I'll keep you posted....