Pardon My Rant But I Can't Stop Myself

I didn't get the notice or see it the papers, but it appears those octagonal red and white signs labelled "stop" are merely suggestions.  You know those signs, the ones you see at almost every intersection everywhere.  Stop.  Nothing complicated there. Not hard to understand.  

Today I was out driving around town, running errands, trying to make appointments, preferably in one piece.  My little Subie is equipped with something called "Eyesight" that watches the road ahead.  If an obstacle appears up front, it sounds an alert and, depending on the imminent danger, applies the brakes.  Well, you might have guessed here, that happened several times today.  And I was not speeding.

I was entering the intersection near my home when a car blew through the red light right in front of me.  Yes, the system worked.  There was a crossing guard on the corner.  She shook her head when I caught her eye.  And in case you didn't realize it yet, we were by the local elementary school.

When things like that happen, it seems I become hyper-aware.  I counted five incidences of people blowing through stop signs or red lights.  Oh, yes, some of them slowed down a bit.  Some of them even made eye contact as they ignored the right of way laws, (I think I had the right of way in four of those five incidences), but they went right on their merry way.  Sometimes yielding your right of way is the better part of valor.

After an evening of playing cards on Friday nights, my grandmother would always admonish her sister when she was leaving, "Now be sure to stop on all four wheels."   Seems my great aunt was famous for California stops -- rolling though a stop sign instead of stopping.  I wondered at the time how the heck you could stop on anything other than all four tires.  

Now I understand.

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