Friday, February 24, 2006

Old People = Property Damage?

Since it's friday, I needed to restock my food supply. I was running low on everything, including basic needs like water and lay's potato chips.

After the shopping spree, I headed back to my car. As I was loading my bounty into my trunk, I saw an old lady push her cart toward her bourgeois Lexus to place her grocery bags in her fancy trunk . While she was loading her car, she lost her grip on the cart and the cart started to roll away from her. We weren't near a hill or anything but there was a decent slope. The cart started rolling faster and faster away from her. Now, a normal person would have run after it, trying to stop it from going Margo Kidder in the parking lot. This old lady, however, decided to look at me instead. I'm not sure why she looked at me. Did she want me to chase after it like her dog? Was she shocked that laws of physics still applied in this part of the parking lot? I didn't know the answer to those questions but one thing was clear. The cart was on a rampage.

The cart, which was going at tremendous speed, finally reached its destination.

The rear bumper of a BMW X3.

Even from where I was standing, I could see that the cart had made a sizable dent into the shiny bumper. I know that if I were the owner of that car, I would be looking for a baseball bat to kill murder the person who befouled my pristine car.

In any case, the cart slammed into the brand new car with a loud bucazzigga, a noise typically heard when metal meets fiberglass.

The old lady finally started to move toward the cart. She grabbed cart and pulled it away from the damaged vehicle like nothing had happened. She then placed the cart into the cart-holding- pen, with no sign of shame or remorse on her face. She then got into her car and drove off.

I finished putting my food into my car and thought about the shitty day the owner of the beamer was going to have. An unknown assailant violated his/her property and got away with it. What's worse is that the assailant showed no regret.

The story does not end there however.

I drove my car toward the grocery store exit and caught up to the old lady driving her Lexus. We both needed to make a left turn. It was not a protected left. The signal turned green and we inched toward the center of the cross street. There were many cars going straight so I knew we had some time before we could make a safe turn.

The old lady had other plans.

She decided she was going to make a left regardless of the rules of the road and the fact that cars going straight had the right of way. She cut off two cars going straight at her. Everyone blew their horn. The old lady didn't care. She wanted to make her left.

I waited for my turn and made a left. After driving a while, I caught up with her again. This time, as she was driving, she decided to make lane changes without signalling. Almost sideswiping several cars, she swerved back and forth in the busy highway, almost killing everyone.

There have been many attempts at pulling elderly drivers off the road. Legislators across the nation wrote bills attempting to find solutions to rampaging old motorists. AERP and other lobby groups continue to be very successful in blocking these attempts to take away the rights of the elderly. I'm not sure what the right answer may be but one thing is clear. One old lady caused about 1000 dollars worth of damage and almost killed 10 drivers today. This is clearly unacceptable.

1 comment:

Ghonie said...

Some dude proposed a monorail system in LA in the 70s. Since digging the hellhole subway system is 10 times the cost, I think we should give the monorail a try. They're quiet and cost effective. And it'll be like the "L" in Chi-town except cleaner and hopefully cheaper. Remember that episode of the Simpsons? Yeah...like that.