Foggy Thinking

 By I.J. Hudson

No thinking person suggests a driver’s license means you know how to drive.  IMHO, it’s just an ID card.  How many people’s lives did you save today by letting a poor driver get away with something really stupid.  The proof is in a lane near you, and perhaps that proof is heading your way - in the fog.  

….And suddenly you see it, a gray car emerging from the fog.  No lights, and no response when you flash your lights as a warning.  They’re thinking you’re warning them there’s a cop ahead, or there's something wrong with your lights.  They couldn’t possibly be doing anything wrong.  

From their perspective, they aren’t doing anything wrong.  It doesn’t make any difference that probably every driver’s education book and instructor preaches about the use of low beam lights in fog and about turning on your lights when you use windshield wipers (state law in many jurisdictions).  It doesn’t matter that other people are trying to save them or to save someone who might pull out in front of an “invisible” car. 

But after the accident, I suspect they’d be the first to swear they DID have their lights on.  It had to be someone else's fault.  The notion that “no one can tell me what to do” is replaced by – how can I get out of this?

Question:  Do we need to have “black boxes” on cars?  It is moving too close to big brother, or would it be useful data to prosecute the idiots who refuse to do the minimum to protect themselves and others?  And systems that turn on lights when light levels dip below designated levels could also be useful. 

Too bad we don’t have systems that turn on minds when they dip below common sense.