A Threefer in Santa Fe.....

I drove to Albuquerque today to do some shopping not available here. Between getting to Santa Fe and leaving, three people tried to kill me. None had a high capacity magazine or even a firearm. All three had the means at their disposal to do serious harm.

First there was the lovely young lady in the Mitsubishi SUV who, I surmise from her posture (looking down to where one would hold a smart phone) thought her text message was so important that she could, without warning, use any or all of the three southbound lanes on US 84/285 while heading, at a speed significantly less than the posted limit, towards the NM 599 offramp. I thought she was changing lanes and started to pass, only to find out she was just drifting along while composing what was undoubtedly something very important. I had to avoid being hit from the side and meanwhile, watched as she careened repeatedly between the three lanes. After a minute or two of this, I pulled over and called 911 after shooting this photo.

"Don't mind me. 
I'm busy multitasking."

 Then, while driving south on NM 599 through the Airport Road intersection, an oncoming eighteen wheeler simply turned left in front of me. Times like this I like the AWD WRX with those Michelin Pilot Sport tires. Slaloming around eighteen wheelers isn't supposed to be fun but it sure can be more fun than simply plowing into one.

And finally, to make it a three-fer, I pulled up to a red light by Los Golondrinas and looked in the rear view mirror to see a 4-Runner smoking its tires to stop behind me. I laid on the horn and drove into the intersection to give him space to stop without hitting me. The &$#@@!! doofus was still on his cell phone as he finally got his car to stop.

And Santa Fe is worried about large capacity magazines????? Yeah, sure.....piss and moan all you want about the hazards of guns in the hands of the mentally defective, but in these people's hands, a car is a deadly, and often used, weapon.  I hope Mayor Coss and his city council understand that.

This is the second "threefer" I've had on the road this month watching people Driving While Stupid. Lest I look like I'm turning a blind eye to us cyclists,, one day last week I saw two cyclists riding to LANL doing equally hare-brained things, but a cyclist riding in the oncoming lanes on Diamond Drive between Canyon and Trinity is, most likely, only going to claim the Darwin Award for herself, not impose it on others. (I think she made the "diagonal left turn" from Canyon).

 Is it getting wackier out there, or am I just lucky lately? If there is a lesson learned here, it is that we are more likely to want to impose controls on "others" while glossing over the need for more controls on "ourselves". A substantial fraction of the public drives, and few want to see themselves held to the higher level of accountability that is needed badly. 35,000 dead Americans per year killed on our streets and highways can't all be wrong.