I'll believe it when I see hear it
I used to lose a lot of sleep worrying about work. Specifically, I'd toss and turn fearing that when I arrived at the office before dawn I'd be greeted by the journalistic equivalent of Mother Hubbard's cupboard....no news.
I feared our team of reporters would collectively fail in their efforts to generate news stories and since I was (and still am) the last line of defense, I'd have to scramble to "find" news to keep the audio meters twitching.
I'm not sure when it was exactly, but at some point I realized that despite all my sleepless nights, and even some pretty bleak news days, my worst fears never materialized. So I stopped losing sleep over it.
Still, I'm often asked, "What do you do if there's no news?"
My standard, and now rather stale response is always, "I just make stuff up."
Today, I thought someone really was making stuff up. I read a story about a lawmaker in California - you know that state known for its intense commitment to the environment - who is seriously worried about the proliferation of hybrid cars.
Really.
At first I giggled and presumed it was some goofy satirical piece from "The Onion" or a similar website which had been mistakenly been construed as real.
Then I did a Google news search...which turned up some 300+ articles dealing with this weighty issue.
In a nutshell (nut being highly appropriate in this instance) this state lawmaker in California is worried about blind people...or "visually impaired"....sight deprived...whatever the politically correct term in California is for people who can't see.
His concern?
He's worried blind people are going to get run over by hybrid cars...because the cars are too quiet.
I am not kidding.
He's so worried in fact that members of the California legislature, representatives of organizations involved with the visually impaired, and others are going to form a committee to study this issue.
(Insert clueless leading the sightless gag here)
They are seriously talking about somehow requiring hybrid vehicles to be "noisier."
I couldn't make this up if I tried.
I really am serious.
Do a "Google News Search" for "blind hybrids" yourself if you don't believe me.
Exactly how many blind people are run over in California? Is this something that happens a lot? Are blind Californians regularly flattened by bicyclists, electric wheelchairs, and or joggers?
This has to go down as one of the silliest things I've ever heard any state lawmaker discuss, and believe me I've been around a lot of state lawmakers, but most of their livers failed before they lost this many brain cells.
Yet since I'm such a magnanimous guy who wants to save California taxpayers the expense of "studying" this crucial matter...and because I also am not in favor of any blind person being inadvertently smushed by a hybrid car, a deer, or a well muffled Zamboni...I've come up with a solution.
I couldn't bear the thought of people losing sleep worrying about how to solve this "crisis" so I put on my thinking cap and vowed not to take if off until I arrived at the answer.
Admittedly I was able to remove the cap in about 4 seconds, but maybe I'm a genius.
Here's what I came up with...(drum roll please - that's for the benefit of any blind person walking past your computer who obviously can't read over your shoulder and realize the monumental importance of my solution).
How about requiring the manufacturers of hybrid cars to put something in them to warn the apparent throngs of blind people aimlessly wandering the streets of California that vehicles are rapidly approaching which are apparently destined to mow them down?
I don't know...maybe something like....um...well, like this?
No need to thank me California. I don't want the credit. Feel free to utilize my profound wisdom gratis.
After all, I never was one to toot my own horn.
posted by Michael
©The Main Point by Michael Main
5 Comments
5 Comments:
My husband, the genius. I knew there was a good reason to marry him. After 14+ years, I've finally figured it out!
All kidding aside... please do not think of Michael as being heartless and flippant. We have a very close friend who is severely visually impaired and I believe my sister was, at one time, considered "legally blind." Thank God for contacts and Dr. Gridley.
My sister sees fine now, so don't worry.
In any event... my friend, Cindy (who comments here often is, by most definitions, blind. Yeah, she can see through her coke-bottle glasses if she uses her binoculars and a magnifying glass -- and even then she sometimes confuses me with Reese Witherspoon.
Ok, not really. She might confuse me with ... um... Ma Kettle. (... and yes, I know, Cyn, I owe you a phone call or 12 and an email or 7)
Cyn does a LOT of walking. She works for Dell up in Round Rock. Most days she walks to and from work. She depends on buses, taxis, friends, and her FEET. She's careful, and yeah... she gets annoyed if people are rude. But I can guarantee you that she would much rather deal with a kind person driving a hybrid than a nasty person driving a Ford F150.
It's just common sense, folks. The responsibility comes down to the driver. IPDE - Identify, Predict, Decide, & Execute. If you're driving a hybrid and re-packing your groceries in a hemp sack whilst approaching a crosswalk, you shouldn't be driving. If you're driving a Ford F150 and putting on mascara as you come up on a school crossing (for the sighted OR the blind), you shouldn't be driving.
Cindy... I would love it if you would weigh in on this one. You walk everywhere... except when I let you drive (or convince you that I really did let you drive)... you get bombarded by idiots every day (on the road... you can leave the phone idiots out).
Sure... we want the visually impaired to be safe. But do they really need to put together a committee to research this? C'mon. How much is this gonna cost me? My hope is nothing. But hey... my niece in California is now old enough to vote -- and this affects her.
How about we spend that money on folks who can DRIVE but can't afford the hybrids they want everyone to buy?!?
I love you, Mr. Main.
Love,
me.
I was so pleased to see a new entry in Michael?s blog that it distresses me to have to post a critical comment ? but not enough to pass up contributing my two cents. :-)
My opinion? I was glad to read here that California is examining the issue of visually impaired people and hybrid cars. Progress is rarely a considerate process, and it?s better to study an issue before any great expense is taken in modifying public or private property.
In our area, curb cuts are being retrofitted on many corners, but it?s taken officials several tries to develop a design that assists people with mobility issues, but does not make it harder for visually impaired folks who use canes to know where the edge of the curb is.
As a Toyota Prius owner, I don?t spend much time watching the dashboard indicator (http://nudges.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/prius-dashboard-1.jpg) that tells me whether my car is being powered by the battery, the gas engine, or both. (It?s like a real-time cartoon of your car?s drive train ? way too distracting!) But I?d like to know that my car is just as detectable by pedestrians as any other.
My biases, along with driving a hybrid:
- I lived in California for eight of my driving years, four of which were happily carless. (Truth: I once generated a two-car accident by leaving an adequate amount of highway space in front of my Corolla.)
- My paternal grandmother died after being hit by a car in front of her building. She?d just started to lose her hearing, but it was in the register occupied by traffic noise, so we hadn?t begun to notice it in person or on the phone.
- I have a friend who is an American Sign Language interpreter and a grad student in an Orientation and Mobility program here. She clued me into the hybrid issue several years ago, but I bought a Prius anyway and became part of the problem.
This issue is real, and it might as well be handled the best way we can.
Glad to see you posting again!
Harlan
You, like myself, seem to have hit the eventual "2-3 posts a week" status. No matter. You never fail to amuse me, give me a lift, speak to my faith. This is alway a great visit, Michael. I'm suspecting, though, that the problem is not with the blind hearing the cars, but the drivers being oblivious to everything but reaching their destination in under ten minutes...
Amy: Did you catch that Saddleback Forum? McCain spoke of government spending millions? to study the dna of bears in Alaska, adding he wasn't sure if the reasoning behind it was a paternity issue or not...
*hears her name called (and Amy doesn't even have that loud of voice either)*
As someone who walks quite a bit (especially since the city in which she currently lives has no real public transit system), it's not the volume of the cars that matter....a lot of safe travel (whether in a vehicle or on foot) involves COMMON SENSE (which unfortunately is not always common in this day and age). As a visually impaired pedestrian, I try to cross at cross walks and follow traffic signals, and I do pretty well provided that drivers do the same. AS a pedestrian, one of my biggest pet peeves is a driver who decides to coast through an intersection where they're supposed to stop--they don't speed through but they also don't stop. It's like they want me to go on, but yet won't stop. That is not safe and delays all involved.
Whether we're on foot or in a vehicle, let's just use common sense....obey traffic laws/lights/signals...and I believe we all can get where we're going.
*steps down offa soapbox, but not before nodding in agreement to Amy's statement about owing me a phone call/email/text msg or 50* :)
Cindy
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