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I am sure most of us have been behind or met someone that is texting while they are driving and hope when we are meeting or following them that we are not going to be involved in an accident. My BFF and I went to Medicine Lodge the week before Memorial Day to decorate my parent’s graves and then on to Sun City to decorate my mother’s parents graves. Grandmother and Grandfather are the ones you have heard so much about. The trip down was uneventful. It is a pretty drive from Pratt to Medicine Lodge as you drop into the gyp hills south of Sawyer with all the twists and turns and hills you drive through. I always enjoy the scenery in the hills. In Medicine Lodge I decorated my parent’s graves and put Dad’s flag in place and then we drove to Sun City which is 20 miles west. It is another pretty drive through the hills on a winding road. We saw two very skinny coyotes cross the road and a mile or so later a deer bounded across the road in two leaps. After the flowers were on my Grandparents graves, I visited the grave of a baby that has a lamb as the marker. The lamb was my favorite stone when I was a child going to the cemetery with my grandparents to decorate the other family graves there. When we arrived back in Medicine Lodge we stopped at my cousin’s Burger Shack and Snack. We love to eat there when we are in town to decorate graves. She has very good food and my favorite is the fried biscuits, they just melt in your mouth. I usually have a salad or taco salad so I can have two biscuits. After lunch, about 1:00 pm, we headed back up the highway to Pratt, hoping to enjoy the drive through the hills again. But that was not to be. When we were 3-5 miles north of Medicine Lodge we got behind a small SUV, like the Honda Rav that is so cute. It was red or cranberry and was a pretty little vehicle. We quickly discovered that I didn’t want to get to close to it until I could find a spot to get around it, which is not easy on that road with all the hills and curves. I had to follow it until we were back up on the flat land again a few miles south of Sawyer. The reason I couldn’t wait to get around it was because the car was all over the road. It would be over the center line and then over almost into the dirt on the shoulder. The driver was also driving really slow one minute and then would leave me in the dust the next (I was driving with cruise control at 65). I finally had to take the cruise off because of how this driver was driving. My co-pilot and I were both afraid that we were going to be witness to it rolling over or drifting into the path of an oncoming car while the driver was texting. Behind us was a large truck and you could tell he was antsy to get around it too but knew I had no way until we were on the flat land again. We had to follow the car for about 15 miles. Once we were able to see down the road and I could see that the road was clear I punched the Honda and started around it. As I swung out I hit the horn to get the drivers attention and the car moved again toward the center line. The driver was still not paying any attention to what was going on and probably had the radio so loud they couldn’t hear me honk. I managed to get around it by getting over as far as I could on the passing lane and as I swung back in front of the little red SUV I noticed the truck was also taking advantage of a chance to pass them. I could see the car was still all over the road while he was going around them. Most of the newer cars have hands free calling. Anyone that has a car with that should call instead of texting when they are driving. At least your eyes are still on the road and you have a little more awareness of what is going on around you. They are going to have to fix either the cell phones or cars so that one of them won’t work if the driver is texting or driving. It is a sad state of affairs when the government, car companies or phone manufactures will have to protect people from themselves. This will also affect the rest of us even if we don’t text when the car is moving. (I never check a text until I can pull over and stop the car.) Some drivers won’t listen and think nothing will happen. They not only endanger their lives but all of us sharing the road with them while they are driving and texting. To Contact Sandy: [email protected] |
