Dear People… please SLOW DOWN. This week we had some scary “near misses” and they could have easily been completely avoided if people would just slow down (and put down their dang phones!). William and I were leaving the school one day and we both had our arms full of his school work and art work and backpack and other 10-year old boy gear 😉 We were walking out to the parking lot when a vehicle came RACING around the bend and the driver was distracted by her own children in the front seat and she was leaned over and looking down. We had already looked both ways and stepped out from the walkway but she never looked up or slowed down. I just SCREAMED at William but he had stopped with a stunned look… (that deer in a headlight look). I screamed at him again and she looked up and slammed on her brakes right in front of him. She was very apologetic but this NEVER should have even been an incident, we were in an elementary parking lot! She was going WAY TOO FAST, add to it the distraction of her kids and it was almost something that would have made our mother’s days a whole different story. Needless to say, William and I were very rattled by the experience and did a LOT of hugging for the next few hours. (as William says “you were “rattled”… I was FREAKING OUT!!!”)
A few days later, I was turning through an intersection with a green light and I was the 5th-6th car to go through but two vehicles from my right both suddenly slammed on their brakes. I had seen them coming slowly but neither were looking so I stopped… in the middle of the intersection. Turns out that they were BOTH texting… and both just using their peripheral vision to watch the car next to them for stopping, etc. BOTH OF THEM just about ran that red light and hit me. So, I implore each of you… PUT DOWN YOUR PHONE…. PLEASE.