America's most dangerous combat zone

Tags:

DRIVER'S SIDE DIATRIBE
By Al Vinikour   

I received a letter the other day from a reader who feels the most life-threatening place to be is the parking lot of a shopping mall where there’s lots of cars, lots of pedestrians and few brains behind the wheel.


For example, let’s say you’re going into Best Buy to price out that smart 70-inch television your family has been belly-aching about for the past six months. You manage to finally find a parking place some length away from the store and begin walking.

Just for grins let’s say your six-year-old twins are walking on either side of you while you’re carefully holding their hands. But wait — what’s that sound? Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No…it’s some idiot in a Buick speeding down your aisle — oblivious to any obstacles in his way — including you and your kids. Luckily you avoid contact just in the nick of time.

Another example: you’ve just spent the last two hours at the mall buying much-needed clothing for your family. Your kids are strapped in, as are you. You carefully begin to back out of your parking spot because you can’t see through the panel wagon next to you. Besides any fool would know that somebody driving down the lane would see a car backing up and because of safety and courtesy, wait until the process is complete. You think so, Baron?

That’s why the person is called a “fool.” Whipping down the aisle is a beater Mitsubishi with its $15,000 stereo blasting at 200 decibels and the driver not paying attention to anything other than Lil Baby's latest words of wisdom in between the carpet bombing coming from his speakers. Remember the phrase, “You meet the nicest people in a Honda?” Well there’s another version of this that’s not quite as pleasant. Loosely translated, it goes “You meet the most blood-thirsty accident victims in a parking lot.”

Funny? Maybe to somebody who’s not intimately involved in the scenario painted above but to those who “star” in this real-life drama it wouldn’t bring a blip on the Chuckle Meter. A parking lot lane is not the staging area for the NHRA Top Fuel Finals. If one is too damned stupid to realize that caution needs to be exercised whenever there’s a possibility of pedestrians being around or the opportunity may arise where a 4,000-pound vehicle might be backing up, they shouldn’t be allowed behind the wheel of a car.

How about this? You’re at the end of the row as you make your way to the store — look both ways to ensure no vehicles are coming –— and proceed towards the other side of the drive. Then, from out of nowhere comes a trainee for Formula 1 racing who happens to be practicing his “corners.” The only thing “cool” about this is the agility of his vehicle as he’s speeding around the turn — heading right towards your ass. It’s only through the intervention of whatever your higher power happens to be — God or Marlon Perkins— that you narrowly avoided being cropped out of the picture.

I never cease to be amazed at the stupidity of some people when they get behind the wheel of a multi-ton “killing machine.” Their vehicles may be filled with computers but the space between their ears sure isn’t. There has to be some justice for people who fall victim to this type of idiot. After all, hit a worker and you’ll do jail time and pay a fine of $7,500 (not nearly enough of either). Why not have mandatory life sentences for anyone injuring a pedestrian in a mall or other large parking lot due to reckless driving?

Or, choice of punishment could be entirely up to the injured parties — no holds barred. For instance, if I were walking my beloved twin-grandsons to the mall where I’m taking them to Toys R Us and some rectum speeds around the corner and injures one or both of them I would have the perfect restitution.

The driver of that vehicle should be sent to Pelican Bay Prison in California with a permanent tattoo on his forehead that says, “Crips, Bloods and Motorcycle Gangs are (put in your own nasty adjective)!” Or… have him strapped down on the “Muscle Man Test” machine at the carnival and use a sledge hammer to see if you can bash his head hard enough for the plunger to go up and ring the bell. There are no losers in this game — except the soon-to-be dead driver.

As I’ve told many people, I begin a column with a premise — embellish the heck out of it and when it gets to the point that even I begin to question my sanity, the column is probably done. This is one of those times.