Saturday, January 20, 2007

Golly, it only took a DEATH for her to slow down?

Utah drivers must shape up
Last week my son's preschool teacher was involved in an auto-pedestrian accident that took her life. After this incident, I started paying closer attention to the speed limit. What I noticed is that if you go the speed limit, someone will soon be tailgating you. I also noticed everyone is busy doing other things. Utah drivers, we need to slow down, get off our phones and pay attention to the road and those on the road. This will be the only way to limit the number of accidents and fatalities.

Christianne Higley
Kaysville
(deseretnews.com | Utah drivers must shape up)


I will give Ms. Higley the benefit of doubt here and note that my title for this entry is snarky. Yes she is admonishing idiot drivers to slow down and pay attention. It is too bad that it takes the death of another human being for her to come to this conclusion.

Having a pedestrian perspective, however, I cannot tolerate those who continually excuse their treacherous behind-the-wheel behavior. If, for example, you hear of someone running down a pedestrian, there is very little rancor unless said driver was drunk. It is amazing how little regard some people have for others while traveling at (literally) breakneck speed through residential areas.

Slow the fuck down.

4 comments:

  1. My favorite are the drivers who decide to speed up and then blare their horn as they pass a pedestrian (had that happen to me today)!

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  2. I remember the moment when I realized I needed to slow down. I will not tax you with the details, and it did not involve death, dismemberment, or any sort of mishap, but I was chagrined to realize that I was acting as if my precious time was worth more than all sorts of other people's safety. As you say, slow the fuck down.

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  3. Anonymous2:35 PM

    Ms. Higley here - I stumbled upon your blog and thought I would post.
    Just a note that my editorial was edited... I had said that I started to pay closer attention to the speed limit instead of the Utah standard 4-8 miles over the speed limit. I am a very safe driver and have always gone the speed limit or very close to it. Something that I left out was that the girl who hit the preschool teacher was going 55 in a 30 mph zone and the teacher was crossing a cross walk. The young girl swerved around another car that had stopped for the woman. Unfortunately Deseret News doesn't allow for editorials to be full fledged articles. It didn't take a death for me to feel this way - my husband is a cyclist and has many near hits. I am a runner and have had people swerve at me. So I am very conscious when I drive. I just needed to do something to help get through this tragedy and I wanted to be heard. Kaysville is a busy place and has horrible cross walks and not enought lights.
    I hope this doesn't come across as snarky - but I just thought I would share the other side to the story. I couldn't agree more with you more. After this tragedy everyone immediately blamed the teacher - why was she out? why was she crossing there (in a crosswalk) - it was dark - maybe it was snowing. Everyone felt sorry for the young girl. I felt sorry for my son, his teacher and her family.

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  4. Thanks for commenting, Ms. Higley. As I said, I was a bit snarky in my own comments but I do agree with you wholely: people need to slow down and wake up when they are behind the wheel.

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