Signal 30
I was driving through a strip mall parking lot the other day and something happened that does not belong in the real world. This parking lot has some nasty speed bumps, so I was already driving a single digit speed. A car passed me, and immediately after I looked away from it- that's how fast it happened- there's a pedestrian less then two feet from my front bumper.
That was the first time in my life I have ever had to slam on breaks in the middle of a speed bump.
This pedestrian- and I use that word with two meanings- was walking so slow I don't know how his inertia kept him from falling flat on his vapid face. I got a good look at that vapid face too, or profile rather- his fucking profile!- because I sat perched on that speed bump for several minutes as the revolution of the Earth finally propelled him out of my way. He did not, once, look right or left, up or down. Once.
This person has an optimism and faith in his fellow men that I will never comprehend and deserves serious academic study. He makes Joe Dirt look like Rust Cohle on True Detective. To nonchalantly stroll- and that's stroll in the most extreme sense possible- through a parking lot that might as well be the mowing grounds for Christine as far as the local drivers go- and to do so while staring ahead, completely trusting in the reflexes, awareness and altruism of others... you know, I thank God I didn't hit him, because this man is a saint and I'd have gone to hell.
I only bring him up because, no matter what Disney diet of lovey dovey movies caused this man to plug himself into whatever fairy realm he lives in, Signal 30 will jerk his dumbass right out of it and I guarantee you that. What is Signal 30?
Most people drive like morons. Their cars are little cushy beds of Narcissistic Unconcern, where they can play their favorite music, eat, text, etc... and Signal 30 is a public safety documentary which shows that sometimes morons become bodies and drive themselves right into more permanent beds of Narcissistic Unconcern.
Signal 30 is the ballsiest driver's ed film ever made. It has several corpses- real, mangled, and dismembered corpses chewed up and spat out in traffic accidents. It's ugly. But the worst of it isn't the corpses. As disturbing as that is, the far more unsettling parts are when the drivers aren't dead. The screams, gurgling moans, pleas for help when there's nothing the paramedics can do- that will haunt you.
And that's a good thing.
Driving is dangerous, and dying in a car wreck can be a worse death than most people imagine. It's nice to think a cage of aluminum and glass with a 30 gallon tank of gasoline is a safe thing to be in going 40 miles an hour, but it's not reality.
Disemboweled, bleeding out drivers begging God not to let them die on the street is reality.
I don't usually approve of Shock Doctrine tactics, and this might be special pleading, but I think Signal 30 had the right idea and I'll defend it with one word: texting.
You would think the lowest common denomination of intelligence would realize writing a novel driving around is suicidally stupid and morally contemptible. Apparently fucking not. I'm sick of seeing these It Can Wait stickers and commercials, because they don't work. It's almost the same as the cutesy, attempt at Geico-level humor drunk driving commercials I see around Christmas.
How can you expect someone to take drunk driving and texting while driving seriously when you don't take it seriously yourself?
I don't know if the aforementioned pedestrian has seen Signal 30 or not. But if he has, he's the bravest man I've ever had the fortune not to flatten in a Mississippi parking lot like shit run over twice.
That was the first time in my life I have ever had to slam on breaks in the middle of a speed bump.
This pedestrian- and I use that word with two meanings- was walking so slow I don't know how his inertia kept him from falling flat on his vapid face. I got a good look at that vapid face too, or profile rather- his fucking profile!- because I sat perched on that speed bump for several minutes as the revolution of the Earth finally propelled him out of my way. He did not, once, look right or left, up or down. Once.
This person has an optimism and faith in his fellow men that I will never comprehend and deserves serious academic study. He makes Joe Dirt look like Rust Cohle on True Detective. To nonchalantly stroll- and that's stroll in the most extreme sense possible- through a parking lot that might as well be the mowing grounds for Christine as far as the local drivers go- and to do so while staring ahead, completely trusting in the reflexes, awareness and altruism of others... you know, I thank God I didn't hit him, because this man is a saint and I'd have gone to hell.
I only bring him up because, no matter what Disney diet of lovey dovey movies caused this man to plug himself into whatever fairy realm he lives in, Signal 30 will jerk his dumbass right out of it and I guarantee you that. What is Signal 30?
Most people drive like morons. Their cars are little cushy beds of Narcissistic Unconcern, where they can play their favorite music, eat, text, etc... and Signal 30 is a public safety documentary which shows that sometimes morons become bodies and drive themselves right into more permanent beds of Narcissistic Unconcern.
Signal 30 is the ballsiest driver's ed film ever made. It has several corpses- real, mangled, and dismembered corpses chewed up and spat out in traffic accidents. It's ugly. But the worst of it isn't the corpses. As disturbing as that is, the far more unsettling parts are when the drivers aren't dead. The screams, gurgling moans, pleas for help when there's nothing the paramedics can do- that will haunt you.
And that's a good thing.
Driving is dangerous, and dying in a car wreck can be a worse death than most people imagine. It's nice to think a cage of aluminum and glass with a 30 gallon tank of gasoline is a safe thing to be in going 40 miles an hour, but it's not reality.
Disemboweled, bleeding out drivers begging God not to let them die on the street is reality.
I don't usually approve of Shock Doctrine tactics, and this might be special pleading, but I think Signal 30 had the right idea and I'll defend it with one word: texting.
You would think the lowest common denomination of intelligence would realize writing a novel driving around is suicidally stupid and morally contemptible. Apparently fucking not. I'm sick of seeing these It Can Wait stickers and commercials, because they don't work. It's almost the same as the cutesy, attempt at Geico-level humor drunk driving commercials I see around Christmas.
How can you expect someone to take drunk driving and texting while driving seriously when you don't take it seriously yourself?
I don't know if the aforementioned pedestrian has seen Signal 30 or not. But if he has, he's the bravest man I've ever had the fortune not to flatten in a Mississippi parking lot like shit run over twice.