Seeing Is Believing

Published on October 30, 2006 By chiprj In Blogging

When you are in the service and stationed overseas, you get military TV channels. The Armed Forces Radio and Television Service (AFRTS) has tried to do their best to provide decent programming for the people overseas but one thing that you're stuck with is military commercials. They don't charge companies for air time and they can't give it free, so during show breaks, they play military made/public service type commercials. Many are "Name this State quiz" or "Once upon a time in history" type commercials, but there are also a lot of safety message type commericals.

One series that was played ad nausium during my last tour to Korea was a series of driving safety commercials. There was the don't drive tired one, the don't drink and drive one, the don't put your make up on while driving one and the don't use a PDA, cell phone, CD changer, and talk to your girlfriend in the passenger seat one, among many others. They were often highlighted with a different country music star (or not since I'd never heard of any of them).

Now all of the commercials were made to push safety while driving. We already lose enough Soldiers in wartime that we need to find ways of minimizing losses in peacetime. They were all also based on situations that were not unbelievable, although they seemed to look a bit exagerated. Well, today I saw the exact situation posed in one of those commercials and it looked every bit as overboard as the commercial had.

The entrance lane I use to enter the highway lane merges with an existing lane and about a mile down the road, that lane exits at Sand City. So, I have a little bit of distance before I need to get over to the next lane of traffic, so I'm not forced off the highway. Traffic was slow and fairly thick this morning, but not at a standstill. Once I was merged into the first lane, I began to look for an oppurtunity to get over to the next lane. I saw a spot open up in the mirror and I looked back over my shoulder to see if I could get in. Just as I put on my signal and got ready to try the lane change, the car that was back there sped up and swerved a little over towards my side of the road. As the car passed me, I saw that the woman had not been trying to screw me out of getting over, as my initial thought had been, but instead, she was up in the middle of her front seat area with her face about 6 inches from her crooked rearview mirror and she was putting on mascara.

I did manage to get over in the lane behind her (I think maybe the car behind her saw what she was doing and was giving her plenty of room). She continued to put on make up with two hands while her body was shifted over to the middle of the car and I can only imagine she was driving with her knees. She was all over the lane and sped up and slowed down at random intervals. Like I said, traffic was slow and thick but we were still going close to 45 MPH. I was actually bothered a lot by the thought that she probably chose a Volvo because of the fact that it would keep her safe in an accident but that it would offer little protection to anyone else she was in an accident with.

Now to be honest, I was also driving slightly distracted this morning. I had a bagel sitting on a napkin in the passenger seat and was tearing pieces off with my right hand and feeding myself.

She eventually put her mirror right and sat back in her seat. After a minute or two of twirling her hair in her fingers (yep, I thought I was sitting in 3rd grade again), she picked up her cell phone and while one hand held it to her head, her other hand, rather than actually steering the car, was expressing everything she said as if the person she was talking to was actually next to her to see the movements. I was actually relieved that I wouldn't be driving near her when my route finally took a turn away from hers.

Like I said, the commercials always seemed a little overboard in their portrayal of bad driving habits and I never thought I'd see them acted out in real life that way, but today was the day! Crazy!

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Comments

foreverserenity

on Oct 30, 2006

That's just downright crazy! Unfortunately a lot of women do this while driving. It doesn't make any sense and hopefully the ones who do it will realiise what can happen when they drive like that.

jennifer1

on Oct 30, 2006

As the car passed me, I saw that the woman had not been trying to screw me out of getting over, as my initial thought had been, but instead, she was up in the middle of her front seat area with her face about 6 inches from her crooked rearview mirror and she was putting on mascara.

I have to say I have never been guilty of this stupid act.

The thing I have done is take my eyes off the road to change a cd - an act that is just as dangerous and just as stupid.

That is all it takes one or two seconds of not looking and bam!

dynamaso

on Oct 30, 2006

People like this should have their license taken off them as they are nothing but a danger to other drivers.

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