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OPINIONS
March 21, 2019 |
 |
 Wingate Lassiter |
Commissioner Braswell
thinks adults need driver re-training
At the close of Tuesday's long "work session," County Commissioner Tony Braswell felt compelled to bring up one more topic weighing on his mind: highway safety.
He resides near Pine Level, just off Highway 70 near the newly constructed interchange with 70 Business. Since several access points to 70 were eliminated as part of that project, he said, an increasing number of vehicles go barreling down his once-quiet side room at un-neighborly rates of speed.
The drivers don't realize the hazard they're creating for him and his neighbors, not to mention the nuisance of speeding cars "noise polluting" their homesteads.
He wondered if the County of Johnston could lead a campaign like the JoCo Teen Drivers peer-to-peer initiative to impress upon adults the importance of driving more safely. And, more courteously, I might add.
Seems to me there's a national epidemic of reckless driving these days. Speed limits are flagrantly disregarded on all roads, from Interstates to neighborhood streets and everything in between. Too many drivers aren't thinking about the consequences of running their vehicles out of control.
For the unfortunate few who don't "get away with it," there's a lifetime of regret and remorse ahead if one's carelessness causes death or debilitating injury.
Parents (and grandparents), take time to impress upon your children the agony, and the expense, that follows if one's reckless driving results in a charge of "death by motor vehicle." Along with that, remember that all of us "lead by example."
A pet peeve regarding road
etiquette
Garrison Keillor, the humorist who put together the long-running public-radio hit "Prairie Home Companion," once remarked that no one in his fictional hometown of "Lake Wobegon" (woe-be-gone) used turn signals because everyone in town knew where everyone else was going.
Well, Smithfield isn't Lake Wobegon. We've gotten so big that everyone doesn't know everyone else anymore.
That's all the more reason we should do a better job of letting our fellow motorists know where we're headed by flipping that little lever on the left side of the steering column. It's really not that hard to do.
Signaling your intentions on the road is the law, you know (or ought to know). Besides that, it's just common courtesy to turn those blinkers on.
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