(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . When I needed them to be, the police were there for me! [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-15 An average 110 people die in motor vehicle-involved crashes in the United States every day. If I calculated correctly, that’s 3 lives lost every 40 seconds on average. I can, therefore, understand why there is this huge push to automate driving (taking driving control out of the motorist’s hands) and do it in a way the renders the automobile accident as a: “here today, gone tomorrow” kind of construct. It’s indeed a noble aspiration. Which begs the question: Is that desirable characteristic within the technological realm of possibility? Where things stand right now, it’s really too soon to tell, I think. If it doesn’t happen, we’ll just be forced to accept the status quo. I, at 70 years old, gave up driving a long time ago. I feel that job should be left up to someone else if for no other reason than for safety’s sake. I firmly believe I made the correct decision. Especially after having three really close, close calls. I had actually fallen asleep behind the wheel on three separate occasions. That must have been unnerving for anyone who happened to bear witness. By the graces of whatever, each time, something jolted me awake. (Full disclosure: By sharing what I’m about to share, I’m definitely going out on a limb). Okay, so the first time this happened was when I was in college. A bunch of us decided to devote the time during the weekend to go skiing. We awoke really early, loaded up the car and headed to the slopes. The drive was at least 200 miles away. That is easily a four-to-five-hour drive depending on conditions. And taking a like amount of time to make the return trip, didn’t leave a whole lot of time for skiing. So, on the drive back to campus, I drove about 190 of those miles eyes wide open, and then it happened: I nodded off. With all other car occupants asleep, there was no one present to wake me up. Being on the highway in the slow lane when this happened, and being that this had occurred with city limits, the car began to head off of the roadway pavement surface. Now, where this took place, there just so happened to be an off ramp there that was on an incline. That change in roadway profile is what woke me up. Thus I was able to make the transition to get back on the road. Though I don’t recall, being that this happened some 50 years ago, I would imagine the other vehicle occupants also awoke no doubt wondering what was going on. We made it back to campus safely and soundly. Now, I’m certainly not proud of what had transpired and I made darned sure I never found myself in that or a similar situation again. And, never in my wildest dreams did I think that I ever would. But, I did, two more times, in fact, and both of those times happened within a year of each other. I’ll explain. Now, I would not be at all surprised if a lot of readers here lambast me for what seems like such a selfish, stupid act. And, I wouldn’t blame you if you do. The outcome could have proved disastrous. The two other times that this happened was in the late 1980s. The first of the three total occurred in the early 1970s. I worked out of town, my employer being a railroad, me doing signal work. It was always 5 days on and 2 days off. Sometimes I had to put in long days, as many as 12 continuous hours in some cases (with breaks at designated times, of course), the work sometimes labor-intensive. It was on the weekends that I returned home, the drive at least 160 miles one way. I would leave Friday night after work and return to the place where the job was based out of on Sunday afternoon. Not much time to spend with my family but I took whatever time I could get. So, on a couple of Friday nights after having worked long days, I made the lengthy trek back home. That there was the problem. On the last two occasions where I nodded off, miraculously, a California Highway Patrol officer in a police cruiser was there to save the day and me. I owe this officer — or these officers — my life. I don’t know if it was the same officer responding each time or whether the two on-the-scene officers were different in each separate instance or if it was one-and-the-same officer there to the rescue both times, but I am glad to report that all turned out okay and without incident. Both times this happened, both occurrences happened to take place in the same town, on the same stretch of highway in the same jurisdiction. I had been on the highway and like in the late 1970s asleep-at-the-wheel experience, I was abruptly woken up. Only this time the Highway Patrol officer who, in being on the patrol car’s loudspeaker system is what did the trick. That officers were there at that time is nothing short of miraculous in my book. I can never any longer say: “Where is a cop when you need one?!” The Highway Patrol officers, in both instances, neither asked me to step out of the vehicle nor take a breathalyzer test. And, I did manage to drive the rest of the way home without incident. After leaving the railroad (it just wasn’t worth me staying on), and from then on, I stayed pretty close to home base. And, after I got my last ticket I knew my days as driver were numbered. For you see when I was driving in the downtown area circa 2006, while running an errand, I got lost. So, I pulled up to an intersection that I thought was outfitted with STOP signs all around. I was traveling east. Across the intersection was a woman in her car waiting. Off to my right and her left, a police officer was approaching the intersection and, because I believed there to be STOP signs all around, I figured that the officer was going to stop. Since I noticed the woman in her car facing oppositely wasn’t going (I believed she had the right of way) and the fact that she didn’t move, I took the liberty of making a left turn in front of her, effectively cutting off the police officer approaching from the right. The woman in the car facing opposite probably couldn’t believe what she no doubt just witnessed. Needless to say I got pulled over. When the officer exited his vehicle and approached my car I volunteered that I did not see his approach. Which is true, because my attention was focused on the woman in her car opposite to mine, my trying to figure out why she didn’t budge. The officer’s immediate response was: “ Did you see the police officer on the motor cycle approaching the same intersection from your left?” To which my response was: “No. I didn’t notice him either.” Long and short of the whole embarrassing encounter was that I was awarded a traffic ticket and had to attend traffic school. If there is a moral to this story it is that I needed to give up driving which, thankfully, for me and everyone else, I did. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/15/2199522/-When-I-needed-them-to-be-the-police-were-there-for-me?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/