DR-July 31, 2008

Subject: Stupid, Stupid boneheaded - driving

Issue: Yesterday I was volunteering for our Convention and Visitors Bureau. I was parking cars at the State Fair. If you have ever been to a festival or a fair then you know, there are people and kids walking everywhere and most of them not paying close attention to traffic. But this is a given. Kids are excited to get in or are having a sugar rush on the way out.

There are 2 parking lots with money going to charities on each side of the street (ours being one of them) The street is a thruway and there are 4 things happening:

1. Cars slowing down and queuing up to park in one parking lot, (Ours)
   
2. Cars slowing down and queuing up to park in the other parking lot
3. Groups of people constantly crossing the street going in both directions
4. Cars not wanting to park, just wanting to use the road to get through.
   

That is the reality, tho one could argue the above situation is set up to be stupid from the "get-go." So for the sake this blog discussion, the stupid part here is that the cars trying to get through and not park, are rounding the queued up traffic and finding surprised and terrified people & kids trying to cross the street.

As these cars are rounding the line of cars, they often nail the gas pedal because they are impatient. The other impatient maneuver is the U TURN that also happens in the middle of all this mayhem. There is one more week of this fair and tho my parking stint is through I fear a follow-up of a story about someone piling into people with a car and taking them out.

What I say in my head: I would be cheering if the it were a case of "natural selection" those people driving stupid are the ones getting hurt, but it never is.