Safe drivers

I've given a lot of thought lately to how the roads would be if all of the people who drove "wrong" were taken out of circulation. You know, those who drive too slow, those who drive too fast, those who rubberneck everything they pass, those who drive while drinking, eating, talking on the cell phone, or reading books.

And in case you're wondering about that last one, I'm not joking. I've seen people reading novels that are sitting on their steering wheel as they drive 75 mph down the freeway. If anyone ever deserved a ticket for inattentive driving . . .

One day I was sitting behind some lady with three or four kids in her car, and there was a green light in front of us. I waited a couple of seconds, thinking maybe she was having trouble shifting. Then I realized she was eating! Not just a sandwich or an ice cream cone, mind you, but a meal! In her rearview mirror I saw her swear, out of anger, not embarrassment, and suddenly she tossed a styrofoam box full of Mexican food right out of the car into the middle of one of the main thoroughfares of town. I went by her and let her know I had seen, which she couldn't have questioned anyway, as I was fifteen feet behind her, and her response was to extend her middle finger in my general direction, and I don't think she was waving. Looking back, that was one person I should have turned in for littering, and with whom I would have gladly gone to court as key witness. But at the time I was too shocked to call the police.

Another time, I was in the turn lane, and another car was directly in front of me at a red light. The driver was conversing with the driver of the car next to him, in the straight lane, and the light turned green. I gave them a couple of seconds, then tapped the horn, thinking they were simply too busy and hadn't seen the green. The response? Again, this guy gave me the one-finger salute. Had I been a serious road rager that day, I'm pretty sure that one would have ended badly.

Being a former Wells Fargo driver, who put 170 city miles on a 10,000 pound truck six days a week in Phoenix, Arizona, a cop in a city of 52,000, and now a firefighter in the same city, I have numerous opportunities to watch stupidity and rudeness at work on the road, and I feel safe in saying that if every rude and unsafe and simply, uh... "non-intelligent" driver were taken off the road, it would be like we were all living in ghost towns. I swear, the municipal bus system in every city would have a boom like we can't envision, and trains would come back in bigtime circulation. I'm pretty positive that there wouldn't be 1 out of 5 cars still on the road.

Heck, maybe some days mine would be one of them!!!