"Beneath this slab, John Brown is stowed. He watched the ads, and not the road."
- Ogden Nash, American poet, 1902 - 1971
I was talking on the phone with a good friend of mine not too long ago and he told me that he'd just totaled his car while driving home from the supermarket. He explained that something fell off the seat into the floorboard and he reached down to retrieve it. The next thing he knew his vehicle was out of control and headed into a ditch. Fortunately, he was using his seat belt and wasn't injured, but he was shaken up and realized that he could have been seriously hurt or even killed. He was only a block from his house.
How many of us get momentarily distracted while driving and end up "in the ditch" as my friend did? I know I have, and recognize how lucky I've been to escape the consequences of my frequent inattention and lack of concentration when I'm driving my car. Understanding that good luck and bad luck tend to balance out over the long haul, I'm probably overdue for some of the bad variety.
All of us know we should exercise more care and be constantly attentive when we're on the road. But it's easy to forget the lessons we've learned from our close calls and allow one small incident to turn what might have been a really good day into a totally bad one.
How about it? Couldn't we wait until we're safely stopped to unwrap our Big Mac, put on our lipstick, make our cell phone call or pick up that pen we dropped? It could mean the difference between getting home safely or not getting home at all.
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