Driving Miss Blue Hair
“Ma’am can you please read column A row 3?”
Sitting in the waiting room at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles in Mayfield Heights Ohio, I was being pelted with individual pieces of the din that caught my ear’s attention until I started focusing on this one situation. A very old lady is sitting at the eye testing machine so she can renew her license. It appears that her daughter who was with her was about 60 years old and in my mind that put the old lady at about 80 years of age, give or take.
She couldn’t read the letters in the little goggle projection machine.
“OK, how about column B row 2?”
The lady spit out a couple letters to the satisfaction of the BMV employee administering the test.
“OK, now we are going to test your peripheral vision. Please tell me when you see the flashing light and where it is.”
For literally 10 minutes (I looked at my watch) this lady COULD NOT SEE THE BLINKING LIGHTS IN THE MACHINE. And like any good employee at the BMV, she kept at it. She kept saying to the old lady, “OK, how about now?” The lady would look in and say, “I don’t see anything.”
The people next to me are giggling a little bit, but I don’t find it funny. After a couple more minutes and with some additional coaching by the employee and the old lady’s daughter, the old lady was SOMEHOW able to identify the lights in the box. They took her picture and she was given a license.
I will tell you right now that I don’t think it is funny. Will it be funny when she can’t see the blinking lights (STOP LIGHTS) and mows down a blind man and his guide dog in a crosswalk? Will it be funny when she blows over a curb and takes out a couple of kids on their bikes or skateboards? Will it be funny when she rear ends a car with a mother driving with her child in the baby seat?
No, NO, and NO. Even though Deezo is laughing it will not be funny.
We don’t need to keep these people on the road despite what a pain in the neck it will become for their families. We don’t need to worry about their sense of independence. If they are physically unable to see the blinking lights and read the text within two seconds, then the reaction time needed to drive a vehicle on public streets is not good enough. I don’t want them operating something with over 100 horsepower in a situation where they can kill me by accident.
Oh, and is it really an accident anymore when something is totally forseeable by someone like me sitting in the waiting room while she struggles with her test?
Probably not.
deezo feezo Said,
October 27, 2004 @ 2:47 pm
Craig, I am disappointed you think that lowly of me. I don’t think old people mowing down children, blind people, animals, etc etc etc is funny at all.
The part of the story I think you negelected to tell us was if the old woman was hot or not!
Wilfred Brimley Said,
October 27, 2004 @ 5:29 pm
Why do you hate old people, Craig?
FilteringCraig Said,
October 28, 2004 @ 6:35 am
I wouldn’t give a retarded kid a gun and I wouldn’t let a blue hair drive. If that makes me hateful, then I apologize. Maybe if you go swimming in that effed up pool with all those alien cocoon’s I will change my mind and let you drive.
deezo feezo Said,
October 28, 2004 @ 7:50 am
Craig, I dont ever EVER! Want to hear or read you make reference to a Steve Guttenberg movie ever again.
FilteringCraig Said,
October 28, 2004 @ 8:24 am
You know who else was a blue hair? That commandant Lassard in the Police Academy movies. When he was walking through the airport on his way to Florida and dropping all those golf balls out of his golf bag, he displayed all his blue-hairish tendencies. (By the way, that guy was also Henry in the Punky Brewster show. I am a dork.)
kiddicus authoritus Said,
October 28, 2004 @ 3:28 pm
driving regulations, revised by the kid:
1. provisional licenses given to those under 21. more than 4 tickets in 5 years, gone forever.
2. DUI test course with prorated BAC limits. Take a shot, blow into a breathalyzer, do some maneuverability… if you pass, take another shot, blow, drive again, so on and so forth until you fail the tests. this should accurately place all people on their own level of drunken driving. personally, i can function extremely well up until about .18 - then i’m gone. .08 is an insult and a disgrace.
3. Prorated speed tests, coinciding with the BAC limit test. If you can successfully maneuver your (insert make and model of vehicle here) at 105mph down mayfield road with a BAC of at least .18, you should be allowed to.
4. Age stipulations and mandatory retests. Since everyone knows that old people can’t drive and young people drive like assholes, retest everyone from the age of 16-25 every 2 years. Once you hit 25 you’re safe until 55, when you get retested every 4 years. at 70+, its back to every 2 years. Any person can request a retest if they find their BAC or speed limit to be under the preferred amount.
5. Size stipulations on vehicles. If you have a Chevy 3500 4×4 quad cab dualie with an 8′ bed and a oversize truck cap on it, you should have to maneuver that sumbitch through those freakin cones in order to be able to drive it. If you cannot pass the test in said vehicle, you are not allowed to purchase it. look into a cavalier/focus/lancer/civic.
6. post MINIMUM speeds for every road and ticket offenders unmercifully. about $1000 per offense, with penalties compounding for every additional offense.
7. install machine guns/oil slicks on my car only and give me full reign as “guy in charge of traffic order” i guarantee that a$$hole won’t be tailgating you when my .50 cal fully-automatic side mounted tire-level machine guns rip the undercarriage of his car a new exhaust-hole.
8. Last but not least, make police accountable for their own car. allow citizens to pull cops over and ticket them for unnecessary speed, running red lights because they don’t feel like waiting, or just otherwise being cops. also police dept’s should have to carry their own insurance, so we don’t have to cover their asses when they run into a law abiding citizen.