To The Father of The Girl I Drove Behind on a Rural Highway in the Rain
I was in the mood for stir-fry and decided to hit the local food market that seems to have everything you need even though the store itself is tiny, and I wasn’t going to let a heavy rain stop me from getting some fresh vegetables. On my way to the market I turned on a rural highway that runs quite straight between a secondary road and a small town where the market is. The rain was pretty steady, and even though I often take that straight-away at least twice a day and rarely drive the speed limit, the rain makes the road slick, and there is quite a bit of on-coming traffic because it is one of the main thoroughfares through the county.
Ahead of me the driver caught my eye because the road is straight yet the car weaved into the oncoming lane. At first I figured he or she was avoiding a puddle or a down tree branch, but then he did it again, and again. I’d come upon the wet tire tracks and they were clearly as much as half-way into the on-coming traffic lane. The car was a late-90’s model Nissan, tan with a faded butterfly sticker in the center of the back window. I began to pay closer attention but I continued to make excuses. Perhaps she (because what man, at least in rural North Carolina drives with a butterfly sticker on his car) wasn’t paying attention because there was no on-coming traffic at the time, but that theory was blown when she stayed in the opposite lane while a black truck appeared at the top of the hill. I sped up and flashed my lights at her and the truck, hoping that either one of them would respond and avoid a collision. She swerved back into her lane a few instants before coming upon the truck, and I was pissed.
On this very rural two-lane highway my elderly neighbor lost her daughter in a head-on crash 15 years ago. Rural roads like this, two lane highways with only a double yellow line separating drivers moving 55-75 mph in opposite directions, are some of the most dangerous roads in America, and why rural driving is responsible for more fatalities than city or suburban driving. As the parent of a 16 year old in a rural area I am perhaps a bit more sensitive than others when it comes to the topic, but fear is only a problem when it’s unwarranted.
I sped up and hoped that I could at least get her license number, but I couldn’t safely catch up to her and see through the rain. As we approached the small town the speed limit drops in 10 mph increments until it’s 35 mph at the edge where a gas station and the food market sit, but she ignored the speed drops continuing on in the rain at 60+ mph, swerving several times along the way. The local police often hang out at the gas station, but of course today they didn’t, so her flying past it at 25 mph above the speed limit went on noticed by the Law. So much for also cornering her and confronting her personally if she pulled into the gas station or the market.
I debated calling 911. I’ve done so in the past but usually in places and at times when the police are more of a presence. Sunday afternoon in a small town in the rain with no license number nor a good description of the vehicle other than a butterfly sticker isn’t going to likely lead to her being pulled over. Thankfully someone pulled in front of her and at least made her slow down as she headed into the center of town, and so I pulled into the food market feeling frustrated and not very hungry anymore.
I don’t think she was drunk; drunk drivers usually don’t veer towards one particular side of a lane the way she did, but instead drift from side to side as likely to run onto the shoulder as cross the center line. She was too far ahead of me to see exactly what she was doing but I suspect that she was texting, looking down at her phone then looking up and jerking the wheel and over-steering. Even if I had confronted her in the parking lot I doubt I’d have done much good. I’m a middle-aged bald guy, making it impossible to leave any impression on people half my age or less. I’m pretty sure I’m invisible to them even if I am steaming mad.
So instead what I really wanted to do was talk to her dad, a man likely close to my age. On the way home with my bag of veggies I composed this to him.
I’m a complete stranger to you but there is something that binds you and me together. We both have a kid, and chances are you love your daughter almost as much as I love my son. What I saw today would have made your blood run cold because it sure scared me. The rain was heavy, the road slick, but your daughter was driving as if it were dry pavement seemingly more interested in something other than the 1 1/2 tons of plastic and sheet metal she was flying down a 35 mph road at 65 mph in.Did you get her that car for her 16th birthday? Was it a graduation present? When you visited the car dealer and she was excitedly checking out the car that you would buy for her, did you imagine her lifeless body collapsed inside of it? Did you imagine me, a complete stranger pulling over and dialing 911 in a panic before running out and trying to pull her from the twisted wreckage?
Or how about the black truck she made a bee-line for at speed. What if she hadn’t looked up and corrected her driving? What if you not only learned that you had lost a daughter but that she had taken someone out with her, someone else’s child or a young family? You hear the local news; you know what goes around here. Things like this happen all the time. Those crosses and flowers along side our roads don’t get put there and tended for no reason.
But today you got lucky. Your daughter made it home and you’re none the wiser about what I witnessed this afternoon a few miles from my home where my teenage son is texting his friends about the cars he’s looking at. Ignorance isn’t bliss when every time that girl grabs the keys is a dice roll. For men like you and me the dice we throw have many more sides; the odds are in our favor. But those our children throw are much smaller with fewer sides, and the likelihood of our nightmare becoming real is much, much greater. Your daughter’s odds aren’t very good judging by what I saw today. I don’t know whether the failure is yours, or your wife’s or the state of North Carolina for handing that girl a license. But whomever is to blame the crushing pain that lays in your future will be yours alone to bear.
I can only hope – no pray and I don’t do that much given my beliefs – that you somehow see what I saw today for yourself, and get those keys away from that girl for her own sake, yours, and mine – because next time that may not be a black truck she heads for it might be my son’s, and in an instant we won’t be complete strangers anymore.
Watcher’s Council Nominations – Scandal-Palooza Edition | askmarion:
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5 June 2013, 4:12 amWatcher’s Council Nominations – Scandal-Palooza Edition | Liberty's Spirit:
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5 June 2013, 6:29 amWatcher’s Council Nominations – Scandal-Palooza Edition | Virginia Right!:
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5 June 2013, 9:54 amThe Razor » Blog Archive » Watcher’s Council Nominations: June 4, 2013:
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5 June 2013, 12:45 pmTrevor Loudon's New Zeal Blog » Watcher’s Council Nominations – Scandal-Palooza Edition:
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5 June 2013, 2:35 pmBookworm Room » Watcher of Weasels D-Day edition:
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6 June 2013, 9:15 pmBookworm:
My daughter is learning to drive. I took her to a California Highway Patrol presentation located conveniently near our house. It was great and focused heavily upon drinking, texting, and showing off. I was fascinated. My daughter said “It was a little boring.” Thankfully, she’s not a fool and, bored not, I think she got the message.
6 June 2013, 9:24 pmScott Kirwin:
I hope she did. I hope they all do. I’m still angry at that girl for not having a clue about the chances she took that day.
6 June 2013, 9:26 pmTrevor Loudon's New Zeal Blog » The Council Has Spoken!! This Week’s Watcher’s Council Results – 06/07/13:
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7 June 2013, 12:44 pmThe Council Has Spoken!! This Week’s Watcher’s Council Results – 06/07/13 | askmarion:
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7 June 2013, 6:18 pmThe Razor » Blog Archive » The Council Has Spoken: June 7, 2013:
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7 June 2013, 7:06 pmjoshua:
Rural texting while driving is not confined to rural america…it is alive and well on the urban highways in rush hour…plus hair combing, makeup application, and exciting phone conversations by the fair gender of all ages. My experience in rural driving also includes the 80 something farmer in his 1970s rust bucked pickup pulling onto the highway from an obscure dirt road at 10 mph with no apparent concern or knowledge of on coming or potential highway traffic in either lane…..too occupied with failed vision, the dip-spit bucket, keeping the engine from stalling, and hoping the burned out headlights don’t get noticed by others, as he was never paying attention to his vehicle condition either…such that the windshield vision is obliterated with chicken or bird droppings anyway. Then there are the Hispanic and the Asian women, clearly too short to see traffic, and all totally unaware of US and State driving rules and conditions…hauling under the speedlimit down toward the WalMart to get whatever to feed the family…etc.
Our defensive driving courses NEVER prepared us for IDIOTS and SCOFFLAWS and illegals and geriatric drivers.
Let me worry about the DUIs…please…get the OTHERS off the damn roads.
9 June 2013, 12:11 pmThe Latest Crop |:
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12 June 2013, 9:36 pmBookworm Room » Watcher’s Council winners for June 7, 2013:
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13 June 2013, 5:49 pmWatcher of Weasels » Watcher’s Council Nominations – Scandal-Palooza Edition:
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25 July 2013, 10:02 pm