Nothing to do with today's blog entry but I thought I should have more pictures with the blog. That's Poppy I'm holding. It was taken at Bryan School while I was there doing a story on the lady that owns Poppy.

It happened again the other day. I was over on Adams street and I had stopped and pulled over to the side of the road, I had a call on my cell phone and I try to be somewhat responsible so I stopped. We've all heard how dangerous it is to talk and drive and I usually have the sense to be safe.

I was about half a block away from the corner of Adams and Maple and I watched as several cars traveling on Adams approached the intersection where they have a stop sign. I saw three rolling stops, one actual stop and two cars who just blasted through the intersection without even making a pretense of stopping.

Drivers of both sexes were responsible for the offenses. Everyone seems to be getting more irresponsible. I've seen women drivers do things that I wouldn't have done when I was a teenager and thought I was indestructible. That's saying quite a bit. The group I ran with did some incredibly stupid things in cars.

One bright moonlit night, coming back from a football game in another town, we decided to play an unusual sort of game of chicken. We all turned our headlights off and used moonlight to see by. There we were a convoy of about seven or eight cars with no lights driving down a mostly straight road but one that did have a few sharp curves. The person that turned their lights on first was going to be the chicken. No one did. We made it from 31 Highway to 50 Highway all the way down Emerald Road with no lights, and thankfully, no accidents.

A friend of mine got a car that had been in a wreck out on his family's farm. The wrecked car still ran but the body was in bad shape. We were both in it and he was driving it along a pasture that had a steep slope on the other side of the crest of the hill. He drove over the crest and turned to run along the top. The car nearly flipped over. He decided that might be fun so he went back over the crest and made another run at it and told me to hang on. This time he had more speed going and turned sharper and the car did indeed flip over. All the way over back onto the wheels again. We were both laughing but when we got the car back to his house and his dad found out what we had done we were both in big trouble.

Having said all that I think that people today are more dangerous than I and my friends were at our worst. The night driving was about like driving at dusk, or maybe even brighter and in rolling over the car my friend and I had only put ourselves in danger. People today are also more self-involved and selfish than ever before.

I have gone into KFC/Taco Bell several times and been stuck because some selfish, ignorant, rude, arrogant drivers had pulled into the side entrance and headed straight for the drive through. At most three cars can do that before they block the drive as they pull over and block the exit from the lot. People attempting to leave the parking lot are stuck until these idiots move out of the way. What makes it so exasperating is that if they would just head around the building and use the full length of the drive through 10 cars could use it without blocking anyone.

I would accuse the Cracker Jack people of supplying the licenses these jerks have in their wallets but I don't think even that purveyor of useless toys would foist that off on the American people. These carbuncles on the backside of humanity should have their licenses, and vehicles, taken away for a few weeks, they need to face the consequences of being such bad drivers.

Oh yeah, how could I forget these bozos that see a friend and stop right smack in the middle of the street. They don't pull over to the side to allow others to pass them, they want to make sure anyone using that street knows that they know someone as idiotic as they are.

Now I know I'm not a perfect driver, but at least I have the decency to be embarrassed when I pull a stupid stunt. Judging by their reactions the people guilty of most of these infractions of public decency think they have the right to disrupt everyone else's life with their actions. What they are is childish and uncaring. Let them know what you think. Maybe, just maybe, they will take the hint.

Okay, so they won't recognize themselves, even when you hold a mirror up to them and rub their noses in it. Oh well, at least I got it off my chest for the time being. Until the next time some driver exhibits their execrable skills that is.