Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 18:16:44 +0200 From: Brad Knowles <brad.knowles@skynet.be> To: Kris Kirby <kris@catonic.net>, Chern Lee <chern@FreeBSD.org> Cc: <freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.org> Subject: Re: Bad Drivers Message-ID: <p05100303b7dcf124e32f@[194.78.144.27]> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.33.0109300619471.94053-100000@spaz.catonic.net> References: <Pine.BSF.4.33.0109300619471.94053-100000@spaz.catonic.net>
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At 6:23 AM +0000 9/30/01, Kris Kirby wrote: > Shoot, you should have see the local city cop at midnight in > after-festival traffic... Jumped three lanes at 65 -- in a 50. No lights, > no turn-signals ... just jumped. Sometimes I wonder about emergency services personnel. For example, do they appreciate or even known what some citizens do on their behalf? This past week, for the second time in my life, I heard a siren and didn't know where it was coming from, so I decided to simply sit where I was (the first car in the line, waiting for the light) until I could find out. And again, the vehicle comes *flying* up the wrong side of the road (at speeds well in excess of sixty or even a hundred miles an hour), makes an insanely short "whip" turn right in front of me, and then continues driving at high speed in the lane I would have been in. The first time was about eighteen years ago, when I was still in high school. I was driving my very first car (a 1974 white Chevy Malibu Classic with a 350 V-8, which I had bought from my parents using the money I had made from a summer job), and I was turning left from one very busy street onto another, as I was headed back home from school. It was rush hour, and I had a very long line of cars behind me -- most of whom probably wanted to go straight, but we only had one lane of traffic that direction. Cars were probably stacked up for a quarter of a mile, or maybe more. A little before the light was due to turn, I heard something that I couldn't be sure what it was. So, I turned off the radio, and rolled down the windows. I didn't hear anything for several seconds, but then I thought I heard a siren. Even when the light turned green, not knowing where the siren was coming from I decided to stay put, and the people behind me got considerably more pissed-off than they already were. A few seconds later, way the hell back at the end of the line, I see this cop car with flashing lights snap into the lane of the oncoming traffic, and he covered that distance faster than any car I've ever personally witnessed (please note that portions of my family have been professional sprint car drivers or otherwise involved in racing cars, and have done so for generations). If I had started to turn left, there would have been no stopping a pile-up of truly horrific proportions (remember, this is before they had air bags), and dozens of people would have died or been seriously injured. This second time, I was headed straight, but stopped at another busy intersection. The fire engine ran up at very high speed in the empty left turn lane beside me, and then whipped over into my lane just in time to avoid the median right in front of it. But otherwise, the circumstances were pretty much the same. Even if all we do is stay put when we hear a siren but we can't figure out where it's coming from, do they know what we sometimes do for them? Do they appreciate it? -- Brad Knowles, <brad.knowles@skynet.be> H4sICIFgXzsCA2RtYS1zaWcAPVHLbsMwDDvXX0H0kkvbfxiwVw8FCmzAzqqj1F4dy7CdBfn7 Kc6wmyGRFEnvvxiWQoCvqI7RSWTcfGXQNqCUAnfIU+AT8OZ/GCNjRVlH0bKpguJkxiITZqes MxwpSucyDJzXxQEUe/ihgXqJXUXwD9ajB6NHonLmNrUSK9nacHQnH097szO74xFXqtlbT3il wMsBz5cnfCR5cEmci0Rj9u/jqBbPeES1I4PeFBXPUIT1XDSOuutFXylzrQvGyboWstCoQZyP dxX4dLx0eauFe1x9puhoi0Ao1omEJo+BZ6XLVNaVpWiKekxN0VK2VMpmAy+Bk7ZV4SO+p1L/ uErNRS/qH2iFU+iNOtbcmVt9N16lfF7tLv9FXNj8AiyNcOi1AQAA To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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