Be Considerate on Earth Day and Every Day
Today is Earth day. In celebration of caring for our home, the planet earth, I saw many Hoosiers walking and riding their bikes to work. I celebrated the day with my ride in. For those in cars, please be considerate of the biker and the walker. As an Indiana/Indianapolis personal injury attorney, I saw many things on my six mile ride that made me cringe. I pulled out of my drive and headed south. At the first intersection a driver in an SUV while talking on the phone ran right through a stop sign. The children in my neighborhood walk to school and there were children all about. One of the other drivers at the intersection honked their horn and the distracted driver took her free hand off the wheel and gave the honker the single finger insult. Her lack of empathy for the plight of the others using the road is appalling. This is how car crashes injure people. This is how semi tractor-trailer accidents occur. It is this lack of respect for the well being of our fellow Hoosiers that allows a drunk to drive and cause a drunk driving accident.
Further on down the road (Eric Clapton) I saw a car following another car very closely, I would call it tailgating. The speed limit on the road is thirty miles an hour and there are people on the sidewalks of both sides of the road, including children going to school. The rear driver decides that their needs are more important than all the rest of the people in the area and pulls right of the first car, guns the engine and passes on the right. The children on the sidewalk jumped to their left out of fear. The car did not enter their path, but if it lost control in that split second, I may have witnessed the wrongful death of a child. The irony of the whole situation is that the idiot driver sped up to a stop light two blocks ahead and then sat there while the first car pulled up slowly behind them. I passed them too. I gave them my best “you should be ashamed look” and rolled on.
We all have to live together. We can avoid traffic accidents and motorcycle accidents and highway accidents if we will just be a little more concerned about the welfare of our fellow creatures.