We said goodbye to a friend. Our pal, Jan, died from injuries she got in a car accident, and was buried yesterday.Jan was one of the hardest-working and nicest people I knew, but had a major fault about driving: She didn't like to wear a seatbelt, and because of her hard work she drove tired, about as bad as driving drunk. It's all the same thing, really, driving impaired. In the accident that caused her death, she turned left in front of a truck which struck the passenger side. She was pinned in her car, unconscious, and lived for six days, never regaining consciousness.
It's all so sad, and yet it was preventable.
I don't have a picture of her wreck, but trolled around on the Internet to find some pictures of cars that have been smashed up. You can probably figure from the look of them that somebody got seriously hurt or killed. .
According to statistics about 40,000 Americans a year are killed in car accidents. I'll bet there isn't a crash that couldn't have been prevented at some point. That's a lot of people to die from any cause. If avian flu or E. coli or something sexy-scary was killing 40,000 a year there would be a hue and cry from the American public, demanding somebody do something. With cars, eh. We accept the risk because we love our cars and we feel more in control than we do with diseases or public health risks.
I've driven for 43 years but still catch myself driving distracted. It's hard to pay 100% attention 100% of the time, but we all need to. As long as we don't we'll keep ratcheting up the fatality rate.
Last night Jan spent her first night in the ground. She lived for just over 42 years, a very short time, but she's going to be forever dead. It's too bad, but she could have bought herself a few more years with those of us friends who really cared for her had she not been driving when she was exhausted.Ciao for now.
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