View from the cop: Crime & punishment
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AJC.com > Metro > View from the cop > Archives > 2006 > October > 17
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Rainy day driving me crazy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We have not had a good rain in weeks. It’s good for the grass and the lake, the fishes, and the plants. It’s good for all the natural things in this world. Cars and asphalt are not natural things. Rain is not good for them. Take that and add less than stellar, I mean lousy, driving and you have—well let’s just say “Welcome to Atlanta.�
I’ve lived here since General Sherman first joined AARP and the people scoffed at the idea of a designated hitter in baseball. (Good times.)
Back then, Atlanta was known as The City Too Busy To Hate. Now it’s known as: The City With Drivers Too Busy To Pay Attention To The Road Because They’re Screwing Around With The CD Player And Cell Phone And Forgot That It’s Raining And Their Car Doesn’t Stop On A Dime….or something like that.
My drive-time is around an hour on a good day. Today was not one of them. My drive time was just under two hours. I have come to live with that. I resigned myself to the fact that I have to occupy my time paying attention to the road. It doesn’t help that the drive-time radio play lists are really short. (If I hear “Tequila Sunrise� one more time I’m climbing the crane.)
As I hit the road this morning I knew in my heart that I was at the mercy of whomever was behind me in traffic and I sincerely hoped they would be in the ten-percentile of drivers who were actually competent. For a while it was okay. I hit the back roads where you have a better chance of hitting a deer than another car. I passed the time counting dead possums, victims of poor pedestrian education, lying here and there on the roadway.
Eventually you have to surface on a main roadway. My surfacing point was Hwy 9 between Alpharetta and Roswell where the local ordinances require residential communities to use the fancy version of words such as “Pointe� or “Waff-Ell Hause�
If you’ve ever been in an accident, you know that in some cases you see it coming just long enough to give you the pucker factor. The sound of tires screeching, horns blaring, and in case you had your window down, the sound of someone behind you yelling “Oh Sh—� are a prelude to the crunch sound. For some reason, every time that happens to me I immediately wonder how I’ll look in a neck brace.
Well, I actually got into Roswell before the law of averages almost caught up with me. The guy ahead of me suddenly decided he needed to pull into the car wash so he gave me about a second or two of notice that he intended to do something like wash his car in the rain. I had plenty of time so I hit the brakes and like we all do, glanced in the rear-view mirror.
Based on what I saw coming at me, I immediately pictured what I would look like in a neck brace, puckered all over, and then forced my head back against the headrest to lessen the whiplash. What I saw in my mirror were two headlights getting too close, too fast. The front end of the car approaching me dipped as the driver suddenly hit the brakes. Here he came. I waited for the crunch but for whatever reason it never came. He must have stopped only inches from my bumper because I couldn’t see his headlights. It was still dark so I really couldn’t see his face but I think he puckered pretty well because I don’t think brakes make that kind of noise.
There we sat, dead in traffic, puckering and all, for a couple of seconds. I eased back up to the 15 MPH flow of traffic. I had dodged the traffic bullet.
I cursed the car ahead of me for suddenly making a turn and I cursed the guy behind me for almost hitting my pretty black police car, and I cursed the developers for building all these houses north of the city knowing all those people were going to get on the highway at the same time. And I cursed those people buying those houses and then not telecommuting. I cursed the traffic lights which somehow knew I was frustrated and as a result, conspired to turn yellow at every intersection I approached. I cursed the lady next to me in traffic, with her giant hair rollers. She had no right to scare me.
In short, I vented to myself, in my car, all in about 30 seconds. I felt better for a few seconds until I realized a sobering thought: I still have to drive home.
It was right about then “Tequila Sunrise� began to play for the third time this morning. Where’s a crane when you need one.
