Edmonton Photographer | Rant

I have had a terrible run of bad luck where it concerns motor vehicular accidents.

It began the first week I had my drivers license. My little Ford Festiva (only larger than a Hot Wheels car by about 2 square feet)got rear ended by our neighbor in his big Dodge Ram. Later that same year, the same little car (which made a very stereotypical cartoon style 'Neep Neep' noise when you honked the horn) got T-Boned on the Trans Canada Highway, by a Transport truck. Both times, I was really very lucky. Both times, it wasn't my fault.

In my second year of University a friend had been given an Eddie Bauer Edition Ford Explorer as a reward for going to University. I was without wheels at the time (due to the misfortune with the 18 wheeler and the Hot Wheels car). Getting picked up for a movie in this vehicle was heaven. You have no idea how many directions you could move those heated seats in! So many directions in fact that after said friend 'didn't notice' the ambulance in the intersection with the flashing lights and blaring siren and T-boned it, they had to cut me out. Not my fault. 3 broken ribs and a messy semester at University later, I am a nervous passenger.

No longer a student, I got a job at the airport and drove 30kms each way to get to work in the middle night. 3am on the highway every day, I was always very nervous of hitting a moose or falling asleep at the wheel. I never did. After agreeing to show up for an overtime shift, driving to work at 11am, the person I was passing thought to pass the car ahead of them, and because he or she (I will never know because they didn't stop)didn't check their blind spot and ran me off the highway. I flipped 4 times, and then ended up in the ditch between the east and west bound lanes of the highway. I will tell you, hot firemen are a myth, and the accident was not my fault. Thankfully there was a nurse driving behind me and a doctor behind her. I am now a very conscientious driver.

So it really makes me mad when I see people texting while they are driving. Talking is one thing. Texting is another entirely. Who in their right mine thought that it was a good idea in the very beginning to make a device that requires you to look down and type while thinking of ridiculous abbreviations like LOL, LMAO, or ROTFL. Why may I ask, are people doing all of this laughing. Surely, things are no so funny as to require all of these abbreviations about laughing. Also, why must they be telling people about it? Pick up the phone and call them- from the comfort of your living room and they will hear you laugh!

So the other day, Bridget and I were driving to pick Daddy up from work and we were singing our ABC's. When all of a sudden a Nissan Altima wanders across the lane and in front of my truck. It wanders back. Then in sort of jolts over, into my lane, drifts for a bit and wanders back. Then it does it again. I am furious. I leave off my ABC's somewhere around Q and beep my horn. Had it been any later that 4:30pm I would have assumed that this person who couldn't handle their vehicle was drinking and driving. But because it was still afternoon, I automatically assumed (which we all know to be the wrong thing to do) that the stellar driving skills were due to some teenager sending text messages about what they are wearing to school the next day.

When I speed up to get away from this person so that they don't wander in front of me and make me bump their rear bumper, they start to wander towards my truck again. I honk my horn, but can only see what looks like a clown wig as I am still only next to her back seat. Suddenly, the light changes ahead of us and I slow to a stop.

I look down into the car, honestly expecting to see some high maintenance teenager click clicking away, but what I see made me laugh out loud and then choke on righteous indignation.

There, in the passenger seat of this boat of a car that couldn't pick a lane is a better than middle aged lady, drinking an gigantic can of energy drink. You know, those giant cans, the ones that are the size of beer cans that unsavoury uncles bring back from vacations abroad. The only think larger was her hair.

She was wandering because she couldn't see past the end of the can and had no peripheral vision due to the massive head of hair impeding her blind spot.

So in fact, I was right when I jumped to my first conclusion. She was in fact drinking and driving. She couldn't manage to sip from her can and still drive.

The number of distractions on the roads these days are ridiculous. I am adding to my list of pet peeves the consumption of any beverage.

Really, with all of the bad remixes on the radio these days, I think I would personally fund a remake of the old song that says 'Keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel.'

So people, could you not just eat and drink in your dining room? Could you not just talk on the phone or text from home or the office? Just drive your cars people. Not every minute of the day do you need to be proving that just because you can chew gum and walk, you can also clip your toenails, knit a toque and drive your car.