A few days ago, in the dead of night, the air still, the world quiet, and then—BANG. Not a gunshot. Not an explosion. But the unmistakable sound of an automobile meeting an immovable object at great speed, courtesy of an individual whose decision-making skills had, shall we say, gone on vacation for the evening. The lights are on but no one’s home.
This particular genius, allegedly marinated in alcohol, managed to clip the back and side of a parked semi-truck, sending his Teutonic masterpiece into a glorious, spiraling ballet of destruction. In its final act, the car obliterated a perfectly good fire hydrant, woke the entire neighborhood, and set every dog within a three-mile radius into a collective frenzy. And, of course, in true dramatic fashion, he completely wrecked his car, endangering his life and that of his passenger in the process. Thank God there were no pedestrians and kids around to make the idiocy even worse. Bravo.
And all this for what? A free physics lesson? A near-death experience to put on Instagram? It takes only a microscopic amount of wisdom to say, “I’m drunk. I should not operate a machine that weighs more than a hippo and moves at speeds that can turn flesh and bone into confetti.” And yet, here we are. A simple flick of the thumb could have summoned a taxi, an Uber, or literally any method of transportation that didn’t involve hurtling toward doom at 80 miles per hour. But no. Because, as the saying goes, if you’re going to be stupid, you better be tough.
This is the sort of entitlement we, the public experience every day. Indicators? Optional. Because apparently, the sheer act of moving a tiny stalk an inch up or down is an unforgivable burden. Pedestrians? An inconvenience to be swerved around at high velocity.
And of course, there are the absolute crown jewels of idiocy—the ones who hold their phones to text or talk, and drive as though their latest “LOL” is worth more than someone’s life. I once saw a woman on Broad Street, not just glancing at her phone, but watching a full video, while driving. A modern-day daredevil, except instead of jumping buses on a motorcycle, she was piloting two tons of South Korean engineering through traffic while catching up on her Netflix queue.
Don’t even get me started on parking. Some people treat the streets like their personal scrapyard, dumping their cars wherever they please. Some even park so close to the entrance of side streets that attempting to turn onto the main road becomes an impromptu game of blindfolded Russian roulette. And yet, despite the elaborate concert of signs explicitly telling them not to do these things, they still do them. Because reading, it seems, is also optional.
Oh, and how about those young people who replace their car exhausts to make them louder. You realize that doesn’t make it a sports car, right? It just makes you a nuisance with a car that sounds like it’s trying to cough up a lung. Another is the special breed of audio savants who cranks their music up so loud, it comes out as nothing but noise. Newsflash: no one wants to listen to your profanity-laced, bass-thumping disaster. Calling that noise “music” is a bit of a stretch.
So, to all the self-important road users out there, I implore you—think. Just once. It might just save your car, your life, and, more importantly, the lives of other people.
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