By By ED WILLIAMS, Columnist
Macon, Georgia must have the worst drivers in the world! A bunch of pink heinied goats could drive better!
Okay, okay, I'll admit right up front that I've had a bad day today. And most of its due to the old blue haired woman who just about caused me to plow my car into a phone pole a few minutes ago. The worst thing is, she didn't even notice what she'd done!
Well, I'll tell you exactly what she did. I was traveling on a street in downtown Macon, and noticed a car coming up on the other side. Frankly, I didn't pay too much attention to it, until I noticed the driver, an old blue haired sister, swerve over into my lane and come directly at me! It all happened so quickly that all I could do was turn to the right and hope that there was nothing to run into. Well, there was, a telephone pole, and the only thing that saved me was a really quick pull of the wheel back to the left which caused my car to just slip past that pole. It also got me back out on the road – my car and I were unscathed, but, I found myself enjoying a heart rate of around six hundred beats a minute…
It goes without saying that I proceeded to invent some pretty decent cuss words inside my car. But, as my cussing wore down, my mind tracked back to a couple of days ago. I was driving to work one morning, and got off I-75 at the Forsyth Street/Hardeman Avenue exit. I stopped at the first light, drove on and stopped at another, and waited for it to turn so that I could take a left and head downtown. It did finally did turn green, and I followed my lane on around. And you'd think that was the end of it….
…but it wasn't. As I straightened out the wheel, some kid, a female who couldn't have been more than sixteen, came straight towards my car. She literally had an angle on it that was about to cause our two front ends to "kiss." I slammed on the brakes – fortunately, the car behind me was paying attention and hit their brakes, too. And, as several of us nearly stood our cars on end, this brat calmly pulled right in front of me, gabbing with some other kid in her car the entire time. She never even looked up, and I doubt she even realized what she'd done.
See what I mean? I could cite even more recent examples of such gifted drivers. But, maybe I'm looking at this thing all wrong. Maybe, instead of giving Macon drivers such a hard time, there's some hidden income potential here for the city. Consider:
1. They could think about setting up toll booths to all the major roadway entrances into Macon. They could use these to charge incoming drivers a fee for driving in at atmosphere that's more thrill packed than Six Flags! If the fee was reasonable, the concept could be marketed even more. I can see it now, "Why spend forty or fifty bucks at Six Flags when five buys you the thrill of a lifetime in Macon?" Tons of income potential there.
2. They could change this concept slightly and use the same toll booths to charge drivers to have their heart blockages eliminated. The idea here would be that anyone with a slight blockage, after about an hour or so in Macon traffic, would get so scared at some point that their heart would pump that nasty ole blockage right on out. Just think of the national publicity a few cases like that would get!
3. Finally, a law could be passed forcing bad drivers to have numbers displayed on their cars. No two numbers could be alike. Then, city residents could purchase chances on their favored numbered car. If the car they picked gets involved in a fender bender, well, a jackpot would be paid to the lucky winner. That way, at least a few citizens and all the local body shops gain from these "cerebrally hindered" drivers.
Well, I guess I've gotten this out of my system. I'm almost back to normal, at least I think I am. I'm know I'm going to be embarrassed at some point about writing this, but, it sure feels good right now. In fact, if the heat gets too bad I'll just say that my good friend, Mike Gill, actually wrote this. Mike lives out of state, so he won't get a lot of heat regardless. So, if any of ya'll want Mike's email address, let me know, and then you can personally tell him just what you think of his weird writings….