Seeing people in the dark

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DRIVER'S SIDE DIATRIBE
By Al Vinikour  

Usually my rants involve vehicles, driving characteristics and generally irksome things that make me want to turn Rambo. However, this week I’m writing something different; something most of us can relate to other than my usual desire to see people who don’t use their turn signals flogged to death with a cat-o-nine tails. It’s about pedestrians who must think we all have infrared vision to be able to see clearly in the dark.


You’ve all seen them, people who move through the night like a ghost; except a ghost is smart enough to wear light-colored clothing so as to be seen by passing motorists so they don’t become a victim — again — of possibly being hit by a car.

No, I’m talking about these rectums who wear black pants, dark-colored shirts and most of the time, a black jacket. They really standout at 2 a.m. on a moonless night, don’t they? Those miscreants generally aren’t walking on a street that has some semblance of lighting. Usually they’re walking on some dark road like they can be seen clearly like elephants marching in a parade to welcome the circus to town.

I don’t know how many times I’ve been forced to veer quickly so I don’t wing one of these nuts who doesn't t have enough sense to at least Paul Revere themselves to passing vehicles. Like many folks who get older (in my case I’m talking purely physical and definitely not mental) my eyesight isn’t what it used to be. At one time in my life I could tell you the sex of a gnat at 1,000 yards in the middle of a monsoon. This isn’t anywhere near the case now.

Today I’d have a hard time giving you the sex of a Rhinoceros at two feet. But yet some idiot whose loping down a gravel road where it would be difficult to see a brontosaurus going to the bathroom thinks he can easily be seen.

I’m not one to want to give the government any more power than it has already grabbed, but I don’t think I would be against a law that would make it mandatory for anyone walking on an unlit thoroughfare to either wear reflective clothing or at the least, be forced to walk with a lit flashlight. I wouldn’t enforce the same restrictions for those walking on sidewalks; but there aren’t sidewalks everywhere or you’d be able to go over the river and through the woods to Grandma’s house, roller skating on a city/county-maintained sidewalk.

I don’t know how you all feel about this but I, for one, do not want to be some bad man’s girlfriend because I’m sent to jail for using my car to score a goal by using an unseen pedestrian as Pele would use a soccer ball. Very seldom does one win when he or she hits a pedestrian with a vehicle whether said pedestrian was seen or not.

Which brings us to another potential nocturnal suicide victim; joggers. I hate those people! I can understand why they’re doing what they’re doing because nobody goes through that much personal trauma unless there’s a reward somewhere down the line. I’ll give you six years to think of the last time you ever saw someone jogging who has ever looked like he or she is happy with what they’re doing.


I, on the other hand, can sit in front of a large flat-panel television with a bowl of buttered popcorn and a couple of bottles of RC Cola and I’ll have a grin so wide the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland would wonder why he was so deficient in his display of mirth. And I’m not just saying this for rationalization of being one of the laziest human beings to ever leave the great state of Indiana, but Mr. Grimacing Runner and yours truly are BOTH going to be guests of a cemetery someday and who will have had the better time on the sunny side of the crypt? That’s right, Darrell…ME!!!

So, as I always do, I have a proposal to make to all municipalities who allow their citizenry to run around at night like salamanders trying to escape from a python — anyone who is accidently hit by a car whose driver honestly couldn’t see them because it was dark — and so were they — should be made to lie in state outside the local general store (perhaps a Wal Mart or a Stuckey’s) with a sign indicating why they are on public display. Perhaps others will get the message and wear clothing that will show their presence in the dark.

The exception, of course, is for some poor bastard who is out running or just plain walking on a sidewalk-less street and is struck and possibly killed by someone who didn’t see them…BECAUSE HE WAS UNDER THE INFLUENCE. In that case the circuit judge should hire an unemployed union carpenter to build a first-class gallows, spend some money on advertising and public relations and post billboards and invite the public to a gala hanging of the son-of-a-bitch who took a life because he or she couldn’t put down their bottle or wait until they got home to light up their roach.

There are too many instances of innocent people getting killed in this fashion and I do NOT mean to make light of that situation because it goes against every fiber of my being to EVER forgive someone like that. Such a person might as well film a commercial stating that, “I don’t often hit pedestrians with my Buick…but when I do it’s because I drank Dos Equis.” 

That being said I hope that my words of wisdom might actually save the life of someone who obviously doesn’t have the common sense to save their own. If my words aren’t heeded then be prepared to see vehicles with nose art and little caricatures of people painted alongside the driver’s-side door like swastikas and red meatballs were painted alongside P-38s during WWII.

And if you are unfamiliar with the scenario, remember this; for every five pedestrians you hit you become an ace.