laura (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} shinyobject) wrote,@ 2007-12-20 12:07:00 |
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floss, eat your vegetables, say "please," and...
DON'T DRIVE TIRED.
Everyone knows not to drive drunk. But they don't show you horror videos of what happens when you doze off on the freeway. It's so easy, too. Your mind wanders, as happens when you're staring ahead at yet another mile of trees and dotted white lines, and then you notice your eyelids drooping and just kind of slap yourself, smoke a cigarette, change the radio station, roll down the windows. Five minutes later it happens again, only this time the thing that snapped you back to reality was the thd-d-d-d-d-d of your tires meandering over the reflectors. There isn't a next time because then you never wake up.
Or worse, you do wake up and your car is 3 feet shorter, you have brain damage, and someone else's life is over.
I'm one lucky bitch, by the way. Examples:
1. Trying to drive from Mobile to Birmingham at 3am, I jerked awake at 75 miles per hour about to hit a sign. I swerved, and 5 seconds later I'm sideways and stopped on I-65 a foot from the concrete barrier that separates northbound/southbound traffic. If it hadn't been the ass-crack of dawn, if there had been *anyone* else on the road right then...
2. On the way from Chicago to Minneapolis, there are suddenly flashing lights behind me. Apparently I'm swerving. The cop was understanding, could see that I was just tired and not drunk or stoned, gave me a warning.
The reason I'm writing this though, is that a couple days ago Dad and I drove up to Charlotte, NC to get my dead grandmama's car. Dad'd gotten about 4 hours of sleep the night before because he's been working nights and his clocks are all messed up. On the way back, about 50 miles before Atlanta, it's dark and I'm following him in his car and he starts swerving a little. Then he edges onto the shoulder and isn't correcting himself and I BEEP the horn and he gets back on the road. This happened a couple more times, one of which involved about half a foot between him and a guardrail. I"ve never been so fucking scared in my life.
He's fine, everything's fine, but jesus fucking christ.
DON'T DRIVE TIRED.
Everyone knows not to drive drunk. But they don't show you horror videos of what happens when you doze off on the freeway. It's so easy, too. Your mind wanders, as happens when you're staring ahead at yet another mile of trees and dotted white lines, and then you notice your eyelids drooping and just kind of slap yourself, smoke a cigarette, change the radio station, roll down the windows. Five minutes later it happens again, only this time the thing that snapped you back to reality was the thd-d-d-d-d-d of your tires meandering over the reflectors. There isn't a next time because then you never wake up.
Or worse, you do wake up and your car is 3 feet shorter, you have brain damage, and someone else's life is over.
I'm one lucky bitch, by the way. Examples:
1. Trying to drive from Mobile to Birmingham at 3am, I jerked awake at 75 miles per hour about to hit a sign. I swerved, and 5 seconds later I'm sideways and stopped on I-65 a foot from the concrete barrier that separates northbound/southbound traffic. If it hadn't been the ass-crack of dawn, if there had been *anyone* else on the road right then...
2. On the way from Chicago to Minneapolis, there are suddenly flashing lights behind me. Apparently I'm swerving. The cop was understanding, could see that I was just tired and not drunk or stoned, gave me a warning.
The reason I'm writing this though, is that a couple days ago Dad and I drove up to Charlotte, NC to get my dead grandmama's car. Dad'd gotten about 4 hours of sleep the night before because he's been working nights and his clocks are all messed up. On the way back, about 50 miles before Atlanta, it's dark and I'm following him in his car and he starts swerving a little. Then he edges onto the shoulder and isn't correcting himself and I BEEP the horn and he gets back on the road. This happened a couple more times, one of which involved about half a foot between him and a guardrail. I"ve never been so fucking scared in my life.
He's fine, everything's fine, but jesus fucking christ.
