A Sign of the times...

Saturday afternoon, I came painfully close to killing a child. I don't mean metaphorically, I mean literally. I drive a 1 ton Dodge truck with dual rear wheels. I was driving down a two lane shoulder less road not far from my home when I saw a group of boys in the 11-13 year old range riding their bikes toward me. The boy in the lead, in the act of turning to yell at his friends behind him, veered across the lane he was in directly into my path. I at the time was traveling at approximately 35 mph. He was about 2 1/2 tuck lengths ahead when I locked my brakes. Luckily he looked and stopped at that moment and I came within about 2 feet of hitting him. he then gave me a surprised look and veered back into the opposite lane, without looking. I quickly backed up, rolled down my window and inquired if the lad had might have lost his mental faculties (not quite that nicely). He response was "My Bad, I was listening to my Ipod." I informed him that it would been more than his bad with my truck on top of him.  I suggested that he not listen to his Ipod when riding his bicycle down a busy road.


 I must admit that I was not as pleasant sounding as I suggest. I do believe that my discussion with him may have frightened him more than the incident. If so, then it did what I desired. I am sure that if God forbid I would have hit him and injured or killed him I would have been at fault either in court or the court of public opinion.

  He was Black, I am white, I was driving a "red neck Cadillac" with conservative and an NRA Patron stickers. Stereotypically that makes me a racist and not caring about black children, that would be the obvious reason I didn't do more to avoid hitting him..

   That's the kind of world we live in.. With a child of any other race, I would have only been concerned with facing his parents and seeing the grief in their eyes. With this particular boy that was only a fleeting concern, I was mostly concerned with the attacks that would come my way if it would have turned out worse.