‘Twas a gray-ish day yesterday. Not foggy. Not rainy. Just gray-ish. The midpoint of fall, its cross-quarter date approaching soon: Halloween, Día de los Muertos, All Saints’ Day … however you know it by.
I was driving down the road as one does, on some errand or another. I did the thing drivers do at a T in the road when they want to cross a lane and turn left: I looked both ways, made sure the coast was clear, pulled out into the road … and near had a heart attack when I saw–waaaay too close for comfort–a gray-ish color car, on some gray-ish color asphalt, against a gray-ish color sky on a gray-ish sort of day.
Of my various and sundry first-world pet peeves, people not driving with their lights on is one that causes me some of the most perplexed thoughts and confusion.
See, had the driver of said gray-ish car put, kept, or been forced to (if I ruled the world) have the car’s headlights, fog lights, or whatever other lights available at its disposal turned on, then I likely would have seen the car, waited for it to pass and caused neither myself nor the driver of the other car any unnecessary heart palpitations.
However, because said driver of said gray-ish car against a gray-ish colored asphalt road on a gray-ish sort of day and I do not live in a time when all cars must have their lights turn on automatically upon start up, the heart palpitations did, indeed, happen. At least for me.
Now, perhaps I am alone in my peevishness on said subject. If that is the case, may I speak even louder, amplify my words to a yet and still larger audience. People, I simply don’t understand why it is not mandatory — in the form of federal regulations — that when cars turn on the headlights turn on as well, all the time, every time?
Yes, yes … there may a rare occurrence in which a driver needs to turn off their lights, and I guess I’d be willing for those other than suspected (not even convicted) thieves, rapists, psychopaths and whatnot, I would — were I to rule the world — allow for a retina scan or perhaps spittle to prove one’s genetic identity required to over-ride a vehicle’s mandatory lights-on-all-the-time law.
But I would still make it mandatory that the next time the car is turned on, it’s lights on all the way, baby.
I must confess
I’ve owned a dark gray car — and found it rather lovely, sleek and oh, so chic; however, I would understand if the public were not quite ready for such sensible legislation to be implemented overnight (including, of course, immediate retrofitting of all vehicles to comply with the new logical law) then I would be willing, as the leader of this cause, to negotiate for our first win: that the new law apply to one category-of-colored cars. Yes, you guessed it: the gray-ish color family.
where are my people?
Am I the only one who finds this national unwillingness to address the gray-cars-on-gray-roads-on-gray-days safety issue? Why is this issue not a rallying cry for senators, congresspersons and, dare I say, even the POTUS?
And again I ask …
