The Cynic Express(ed) 1.09: Holiday Hazard #67

     Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, Ladue, Missouri. Twenty-two year-old Jennifer Soshkin, from Chicago, Illinois, stopped at a Shell station to fill up her car. While she pumped gas, a sixteen year-old driving a Mercedes lost control, jumped a curb, and hit her car, pinning her between her car and the gasoline pumps. The vehicles caught fire, and although the kid who caused the accident escaped personal harm, Jennifer died as no one could reach her through the flames and she, pinioned, could not escape.

     Questions immediately arose of whether the kid was driving too fast (he probably was) and whether road conditions had played a part in the tragedy (a glazing sort of rain had been fading in and out all day and part of the night before). Charges had not been filed as of Saturday, and regardless of if they are, the holiday tragedy could have been avoided. One of many that tragedies that erupted this weekend that could have been prevented if drivers used a litte uncommon sense.

     I know, there are only twenty-some shopping days until Christmas, and the perfect gift for Uncle Ross lies at the mall across town, and then Aunt Tiffany's scented candles are at the little shop on Macklind, and somebody has to stop at the post office to mail the cards and the grocery store for flour to bake the damn cookies for the neighbors, in addition to the normal workday cheer of getting to work, picking up the kids, and whatever the hell else there is, but for crying out loud, slow that two-ton hunk of potential disaster down.

     In lieu of planning ahead and effectively using their time, people are racing along the joyously boisterous city streets and highways, spreading a little Christmas cheer with their middle fingers at all the other shoppers and commuters. I am not jumping on the bandwagon and writing about the regular, gratuitous, "Road Rage" the current Publishing and Sermonizing Buzzword for people going ballistic in their automobiles and using them like offensive weapons.. I am talking about the little bit of rush, the little bit of holiday stress, that will not necessarily make us drive spitefully, but just a little more aggressively. Trying to beat the next car to the exit. Passing on the right. Not using common courtesy on the highways because of the feeling that there is only so much good space, good luck, or parking space to be had.

     As if to prove those who would say "It couldn't be worse" wrong, the holiday season and subsequent holiday driving tends to fall in the beginning of winter. Not only are there other drivers to survive, people as preoccupied or more than we are, but we have to reacquaint ourselves here in the Midwest with the pleasures of snow and ice. I have not yet had a native Missouri driver explain to me why Missourians share the tendency to drive faster when freezing precipitation begins to fall (I think they believe that if they drive faster, they will be home and out of it quicker, before the roads become treacherous). Regardless, wheels will be rolling and spinning in place; suburban mothers in their sport utility vehicles will feel like rugged frontier women, plowing through the drifts and into the ditches; and poor lowly commuters in little Geos will white-knuckle their way to work and their girlfriends' houses.

     So forget about going out there and doing it to them before they do it to us. Let's all take it a little easy, pop another cassette in the car stereo, and enjoy life in the slower lane for once. After all, the Christmas time comes once a year, so savor it, every minute of it, even the ones spent in the car or truck. The holiday colors are blue and green, not black. And the life you save might be your own, but more importantly, it might be mine or someone I love.