Will We Learn?

More insanity:




What is there to say other than this has to be stopped.

Shiny, Wheeled Signs of the Times

I've heard it said (and/or written) in many places, that one's driving shows a great deal of their personality. If this is so, and I believe I have written this before, Grande Prairie and the local area is home to one HELL of a lot of self centered, ignorant, impatient and outright dangerous people. At the very least, people seem to have forgotten they are operating a machine that can take lives in an instant.

Every day I am amazed that the news is not filled with stories of driving fatalities (yet bad driving takes multitudes of lives every year...do the research) but even the amount that I do hear makes me sick to the stomach at the thought of taking a life or lives by any sort of negligence behind the wheel. Yet so many others seem oblivious to this, even ripping through school zones or performing multiple tasks OTHER than focusing on the road all while hurtling along well beyond the speed limit.

But here a young family is snuffed while about to turn off to their rural home, there an old man snapped out of existence by one of countless youths obviously too immature for such responsibilities. Although, in fairness, many much older than he are no more mature, as is evidenced by the lack of ability to learn from the mistakes of others.

And it just seems to be getting worse. I feel ridiculous saying this but I remember a time when it seemed that when most people would make an honest mistake in driving, they would make some attempt to show the offended driver that they knew their mistake, felt bad, and would learn from the mistake. Just a couple of days ago I saved a young woman from getting t-boned by seeing a glimpse of her approaching and assuming she was going to blindly dart across in front of me in her little car. She did so and if I hadn't slowed enough, I'd have plowed right into her. She didn't even look at me, just peered straight ahead as if she'd done nothing stupid and dangerous at all.

And then, of course, there are the cell phones...

I think by now, most must be aware of the spike in road idiocy thanks to people talking, texting, surfing, gaming, reading and god knows what else on their phones while driving. So since people seem unable to use common sense in enough numbers so as to not be significantly dangerous to each other, governments are creating laws such as the distracted driving law here in Alberta. Now we can at least make some extra money off some of the idiots who get caught, as with speeding drunk driving laws. But what chance that a real impact in terms of safe driving will be made?

Not much, methinks.

*sigh*

Oh well. Please drive safe and be good to each other.

Award!

I was delighted to learn that during my hiatus, the wonderful MoonRaven awarded this blog (and 2 others) with the Liebster Blog Award.

This award is meant for blogs with less than 300 followers and with the honor of winning goes the duty of awarding it forward, so to speak, to 3 other such blogs. I am not being facetious when I say that I could happily give this award to most of those bloggers linked in the sidebar. However, my choices are:

LindaM at Hello Its Me was one of the first to comment here and I have always appreciated both her readership and her blogging, as well as admiring the moves she and her family are making to move forward into the uncomfortable future while keeping sustainability, community and information sharing as high priorities.

Mark and Anna at The Walden Effect are into year 5 of homesteading and put a lot of work into sharing what they learn and fostering an online community of homestead or sustainability-minded folks and information. My mother's flower garden has many beautiful poppies still blossoming from seeds I received from Anna 3 winters ago. I have been meaning to thank her and share pictures for a long time. This is one at least.


The 3rd I would like to give to my friend Angie at What's She Doing In There? Angie writes about projects in her career as a theatrical artisan, as well as personal projects and her urban garden. Her blog is also a nice window for me, back into the Edmonton theatre scene, in which I worked for over 10 years and which I often miss greatly. People can gain a real insight into some of the magic of theatre by following this great artist and technician.

Thanks again MoonRaven.

Peace and comfort, all.


UPDATE:

All day long I have been thinking that I should have ignored the 3 blog aspect of forwarding this award because there was another blog that I really wanted to add. But then I get home and discover that one awardee was ineligible due to having developed too larger a readership (congrats to Anna and Mark!!!) so now I can award the blog I have been thinking about all day and still hold on to the 3 blog limit.

Teresa of Eden Hills seems a most remarkably compassionate person whom I notice makes every effort to reply to each person who comments, and this number seems to be deservedly increasing. I hope she will soon be ineligible for this award as well! I really should have ignored the guideline to begin with.