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You've seen them, the crosses and flowers by the side of the road. Memorials to lives cut short in violence of a auto collision. They've become part of the landscape in the last couple of decades, marking dangerous intersections and deadly curves. They're now so common that they're easy to ignore. But with each memorial is associated with an untimely death, the grief of family and friends, and should serve as a reminder of the dangers we face in our cars.
I came face-to-face with the automobile fatalities fairly early in my life. I joined my local volunteer fire department when I turned 18, and the very first auto accident I responded to was a fatality. A man with a history of driving under the influence fell asleep at the wheel on his way home from a bar. His car drifted across the double yellow lines on a curved stretch of road and his drove underneath the trailer of a tractor-trailer truck headed the other way. He never woke up.
In the decade that followed, I responded to many other incidents involving motor vehicles, many of them fatal. Somewhere along the way I began to shield myself from the pain. I thought I had stopped feeling for the people who die in these accidents, especially the ones who die from their own mistakes. I was wrong.
Yesterday, a friend of mine posted a blog entry about witnessing a fatal accident while visiting her father in Florida. She has written a deeply moving piece about someone she had never met and it brought tears to my eyes. I felt a need to share her story here as well. Her entry is also available here on livejournal in a syndicated feed I created: http://syndicated.livejournal.com/mepsnbarry_adv/35948.html
So, the next time you drive by one of the many memorials on the side of the road, take a moment to reflect on the life that was lost. And ask yourself if you are being as careful as you could be...
I came face-to-face with the automobile fatalities fairly early in my life. I joined my local volunteer fire department when I turned 18, and the very first auto accident I responded to was a fatality. A man with a history of driving under the influence fell asleep at the wheel on his way home from a bar. His car drifted across the double yellow lines on a curved stretch of road and his drove underneath the trailer of a tractor-trailer truck headed the other way. He never woke up.
In the decade that followed, I responded to many other incidents involving motor vehicles, many of them fatal. Somewhere along the way I began to shield myself from the pain. I thought I had stopped feeling for the people who die in these accidents, especially the ones who die from their own mistakes. I was wrong.
Yesterday, a friend of mine posted a blog entry about witnessing a fatal accident while visiting her father in Florida. She has written a deeply moving piece about someone she had never met and it brought tears to my eyes. I felt a need to share her story here as well. Her entry is also available here on livejournal in a syndicated feed I created: http://syndicated.livejournal.com/mepsnbarry_adv/35948.html
So, the next time you drive by one of the many memorials on the side of the road, take a moment to reflect on the life that was lost. And ask yourself if you are being as careful as you could be...
