Archive for July, 2006So, today I feel like delving into one of the most overtalked topics around - poor driving. So, people have been driving cars for over a century now. I say that the inventor of the motor vehicle (Mr. Ford and his wonderful engineers) should give themselves a pat-on-the-back for coming up with one of the most dangerous inventions this planet has seen to date. Why do I call these vehicles dangerous? The reason is seen (and heard) everywhere. If you drive in Houston and listen to a major radio station either in the morning (during the drive to work) or the evening (during the drive from work), you’ll typically hear traffic reports as far as what highway is backed up for such and such reason. Well, if you really ever pay attention to them, then you’ll notice that there is hardly ever a traffic report without an accident involved in it. Whether it involves a jacknived rig, a fender bender, or a 20-car pile-up, accidents happen - a lot. Typically, these accidents result in minor to sub-major injuries. Only occassionally will you hear that the accident involved fatalities. This, is a relief. However, it still does happen. In fact, in 2004 alone, 38,253 accidents where fatal. In addition, 1.86 million people were injured, and 4.28 million other accidents occured! 4.28 million! Knowing the frequency of these accidents is rather unnerving knowing that you are on the road with the same careless (or inexperienced) drivers that are causing these wrecks. So, if we have such horrible accidents with such frequency, how do we solve this? At this point, we can’t stop current drivers from being any better. But, we can try to shape the future by trying to do a better job of training drivers and giving harsher penalties for those involved in accidents. As strict as it may sound, it’s the truth. Why? First: Loss of life is very tragic, and when it happens 38,000+ times a year in vehicles, that’s absurd. Second: removing bad drivers from the road, or at least training drivers to be better at what they do might help save $230 billion a year. That’s right, accidents in 2000 resulted in damages of about $230 billion. Third: I’ve heard of friends who have gone through 4 cars in about 4 years because of accidents they have had. 4 cars in 4 years! I’ll be lucky enough to buy myself a new car by the time I graduate in 2 years! 4 accidents in 4 years shows something: the person is an inadequate driver and should be either removed from the road or required to pay a harsh penalty out of their own pocket. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always work, as these penalties hardly ever motivate someone to never do it again (come on, look at your local judicial system’s website and search for drug offenders and look at how often there are repeat offenders). Finally, although I love older people and think that most of them are the sweetest people on the face of the planet, I don’t think the majority of them should be driving. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been on the road behind an elderly driver who was doing at least 20 miles under the speed limit. Sure, this might be safer, but it incites road rage and definitely inconveniences other drivers if there’s no way to pass this person. Case and point, however, is when these older people are unable to pay attention to what’s going on around them, much less be able to drive this big massive vehicle properly. This morning, on the way to work, I was driving behind an elderly woman who was going 10 miles under the speed limit. She was swerving in her lane, which is a big no-no when driving. Then, when we finally made the turn to get on the feeder road, she turned into the right lane (slowly, might I add), and I got in the left lane. My goal was to get onto the highway. This woman definitely looked like she was staying on the feeder road. However, no sooner than I get halfway along side her car, she begins swerving over into my lane (no warning blinker either - she never used a blinker once). I honk my horn and use what little evasive maneuvers that I could to avoid getting in an accident. She paid heed to my horn and remained in her lane. Nevertheless, it’s people like that who should remain off the road - for good. Since the dawn of time and after a little bit of evolution, animals have mated. This abundantly simple instinctive fact has blessed all species since they’ve been in existence. The act of mating can (and should only) be said to be truely wonderful, as it is what allows animals to perpetuate and continue to exist. In most cases, mating is a very pleasurable act (as it should be!), and should be condoned by everyone and everything. Now, in the past, almost any animal would not have strictly just 1 mate. It was inconceivable. Then again, social structures like there are today didn’t exist. Plus, their mating was mainly for reproductive purposes (even every now and then I’m sure animals would do it just for fun or pleasure - animals have their fun every now and then). It is animal nature for males to want to spread their seed in as many places as possible. So, the cycle of life continued in a natural manner for thousands of years. Then, many years after humans were fully evolved, the idea of marriage came along - tying a man and a woman together for life. However, even when this concept came around, there must have been serious issues in the societal structure, else some assholes wouldn’t have got the idea to start putting in a set of moral codes for his people to abide by. In many of the cultural centers around the world, some of the moral codes involved things such as ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery.’ (sound familiar to you Christians out there?). So, back when these rules were implemented, if one was convicted of adultery (which most of the time would be women, as men were the dominant figures in society and they rarely ever did any wrong, despite how untrue this really is), they were executed in some grotesque manner. Well, it was coming time to renew intellectualistic.com, and I guess I was getting tired of how long it was. So, I opted to try to see if something that defined me a little better was around. True to the fact, there was. chrisweldon.net was somehow available. I guess when I was searching for domain names for myself a few years back, I found that chrisweldon.com was already taken, and didn’t bother searching the .net domain. Well, it was there, so I quickly snatched it up and have now applied it to the site. So, anyone who’s come here via the domain name intellectualistic.com, please update your bookmarks and brains to use chrisweldon.net. Peace. |