The two are different degrees of the same thing and the fear comes from it happening suddenly, unexpectedly, and with no time to react. I think the deer thing scares me more because deer are too stupid to know not to run onto a highway. Other motorists at least should understand not to do the same against a traffic signal, although some of them appear to be as stupid as the deer.
Then there are motorcycles. I have nothing against them or those who ride them but I’ve personally seen enough people badly injured riding them, I stay away. So what happens when two of my highway phobias come together literally? Yikes! At least those guys were only hurt, but still.
4 comments:
My biggest driving fear is people running red lights. On the day the Bulls beat Portland in 1993, I think, for the championship, I came to a stop light and was first in line. The light turned green, and being dumb, I just gunned it and took off in the intersection. I looked to my left and here comes this big SUV running his red light. What was weird was that I knew I was going to be hit and I totally relaxed my body. It seemed as though everything was in slow motion.
Fortunately, the guy hit me behind my drivers side door and spun me around, I did a 180 and ended up about 40 feet forward of where I was headed. I noticed a couple of things. My neck was really stiff, had a little whip lash. My right knee hit the middle column and broke it (the column, not my knee although it was very sore). And the next morning when I got out of the shower I noticed a black and blue 2 inch stripe going from the top of my left shoulder toward the lower right hand side of my stomach. It was the bruise from my seat belt that restrained me.
So I learned 2 lessons. 1.) Seat belts do save lives. My head would have gone through the upper right portion of my windshield. and 2.) I always look both ways before I enter an intersection after a green light.
Rickmonday:
But seat belts are a device which the Nanny State forced automakers to place in cars.
Thus you are alive today because of Ralph Nader.
How can you sleep at night?
JP
JP,
Damn! Ok,you go me on this example. I wont lie, at that time I only wore the seatbelt because it was the law. Now however, I buckle up every single time, even if I am going just around the block.
But, forcing people to wear seatbelts is a little bit different than having to rely upon the government to tell you how to conserve energy.
At the top of my list of many things, kids on bikes in the street. Many years ago, an 11 year old girl on a bike pulled right out in front of my car on a semi-busy street. I did have time to react, somewhat, but the front end of the car and her front wheel still made contact. Fortunately, she only sustained scrapes. It could have been a lot worse. I'll never forget the first words out of her mouth when I got out of my car to see how she was: "Please don't tell my mom."
I wore a seat belt before it was the law.
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