To the Female Driver Who Nearly Killed Me on Friday, the Thirteenth

What could have been, but (thankfully) wasn't
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“Patience is not simply the ability to wait – it’s how we behave while we’re waiting.”

– Joyce Meyer
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On open letter to the female driver who nearly killed me...

You, going east on Route 30 in your snazzy blue and white striped Camaro, ran a red light as my husband, westbound, was making a left turn onto North George Street from Route 30 (York, Pennsylvania), almost T-boning the passenger side of our car, missing by inches.
Where I was riding.
Had my husband not sped up, God knows what might have happened.
Serious injury for sure, perhaps my death.
It was Friday, the 13th, June 2014 – in my case, a lucky day and a driver (my husband) with excellent reflexes.
As my husband carefully navigated around a disabled car stuck in the left-turn lane and nudged into the intersection, the traffic light had just turned yellow, so I know that your light was still red because of the green light delay built into the Route 30 traffic light system.
You were on your mobile phone, obviously oblivious.
What were you talking about that was so important? Your grocery list? The latest celebrity gossip? Checking up on a child? Yakking to a friend? You mean you couldn’t pull over to place or accept your call? How about waiting until you were in a safe place to place or answer a call?
I could rant about your being a stupid careless bitch who put your own selfish desires above the public good, but, instead, I would like to tell you what your moment of stupidity could have meant to me and my family – you know, put a face on a tragedy that, thankfully, did not happen.
Let’s assume that I had been seriously injured, not killed.
I would have been rushed to York Hospital, possibly paralyzed for life, most certainly with massive internal injuries to my right side and multiple broken bones.
No doubt, I would have had to endure months, perhaps years, of physical therapy and pain, my entire life devastated and changed in significant ways.
Had I been killed, your selfishness would have taken away a wife from Jerry, mother from Eric, and a grandmother from Victoria, Rhia, Lily, and Holly and leaving a hole in several lives beyond my immediate family.
If you are so inclined, you can read more about my life in this updated “eulogy” (a truncated life story) – not that you give a damn, but that’s okay. I certainly can live the rest of my life without your affirmation. In my mind, you’re just a another careless stranger to be avoided.
If none of those scenarios moves your princess posterior, then how about the inevitable charges against you (for example, involuntary manslaughter and using a mobile phone while driving, now illegal in Pennsylvania) and the ensuing civil lawsuit? Because whether I would have been injured or killed, you and your family and your insurance company would have been sued, and you would have been tied up in court for years.
Worse yet, you and your passenger could have also been injured or killed; you might have been trapped by your own hot engine, still running – not a pretty sight.
For now, you get a do-over, and for that I am thankful.
You get to walk away without being arrested and dragged through the court system, and I get to live my life, alive and uninjured.
I hope you were as shaken up as I was and that you will think twice about yakking on your phone while driving.
For the rest of my readers: please do not talk and text on your phone while behind the wheel.
Please, just don’t.
Nothing is that important, nothing that can’t wait for you to pull over into a safe place.
Your fellow drivers thank you.
I thank you.



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