First and foremost, it appears that the woman was physically OK. That’s what matters most. Vehicles are machines, complicated assemblies of metal, plastic, rubber & glass. They can be fixed. They can be discarded.
Unfortunately for this woman, her experience has been shared with millions of people worldwide.
For everyone else, her experience serves as a reminder – A reminder of what being behind the wheel behaving like this looks like, and of how quickly things can take a turn for the worst when we’re not pay attention to what we are doing while operating a 4000 pound machine.
The end result: It was just a mailbox. Scattered letters on the driveway. Likely an upset resident. A vehicle with front end & mechanical damage. I thought I’d heard in an article that there was about $5,000 worth of damage to the car. Again, damages to inanimate objects.
My Friends & I Work Here
As a member of the highway construction community, I view this video from an entirely different perspective.
This is a situational reality for the tens of thousands of us who make our living working on the roads. We’re out, working adjacent to traffic, just doing our jobs, repairing & improving our nation’s transportation network.
And of course, there are others of us out there: Emergency responders. Police officers. Firemen. Tow truck operators. All of us make our livings being on the road, exposed to people & situations like this.
We’re not mailboxes. Replacements aren’t available at Menards.
This woman, this week, happens to be the poster child for this behavior. There are probably thousands of others, just like her, exhibiting this behavior right now.
I would bet that, in the time that it took for me to write this post, there’s been an accident somewhere in America that was caused by a distracted driver.
Question; What will it take? Really. When will people stop thinking that “This isn’t me – I know what I’m doing?”
My friends. My coworkers. My brothers & sisters in emergency services. Our duties call us to out and require us to work along side of motorists. We are forced to share the space. We don’t always have the luxury of being protected by concrete barriers. When we’re exposed, all it take is the blink of an eye for us to be the mailbox. Simple physics: 4,000 pound vehicle vs. 200 pound human being: Force = Mass x acceleration.
Our work environment is dangerous. It doesn’t have to be as dangerous as it is. Given the prevalence of this behavior, we’re way more at risk today than we were, say, a decade ago.
Action Item: Just Stop It
People need to just drive the car. Drive the truck. Pay attention. It’s not hard.
The text thread that you think is so vital, so imperative that it can’t wait for you to wait until your vehicle is in park, isn’t important either. If it is that important, ask Siri to dial-up the person so you can talk to them while keeping your eyes on the road.
Do me and my friends a favor.
Do the guy in front of you in traffic a favor.
Do the owner of the roadside mailbox a favor.
I don’t need to say it. Or type it. You know what to do.
Action Item – Stop it. Just stop doing it.
You think you have it all figured out. You think you know how to text and drive. “This will never happen to me because I’m careful” is what you’re telling yourself.
Just stop.
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