From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Sep 30 12:17: 7 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from femail9.sdc1.sfba.home.com (femail9.sdc1.sfba.home.com [24.0.95.89]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4230237B40E for ; Sun, 30 Sep 2001 12:16:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ATLANTA.threespace.com ([24.21.224.204]) by femail9.sdc1.sfba.home.com (InterMail vM.4.01.03.20 201-229-121-120-20010223) with ESMTP id <20010930191653.JYKH7703.femail9.sdc1.sfba.home.com@ATLANTA.threespace.com> for ; Sun, 30 Sep 2001 12:16:53 -0700 Message-Id: <4.3.2.7.2.20010930151406.021b7290@threespace.com> X-Sender: tech@threespace.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 4.3.2 Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 15:15:51 -0400 To: FreeBSD Chat From: Technical Information Subject: Re: Bad Drivers In-Reply-To: References: < Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org You know, as I read this, I imagined comic book-style panels, captions, and thought bubbles. You even had a Spidey-sense. :-) I gotta lay off the comic books. --Chip Morton At 12:16 PM 9/30/2001, Brad Knowles wrote: > 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, > >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 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message