Thursday, August 16, 2007

Bogie dumptruck! Incoming!!

I want to know who it was that decided that "rolling through a stop sign" is a dangerous criminal offense which warrants police officer harassment (I've gotten a ticket for this before), but who also thinks that it's perfectly okay for uncovered dumptrucks with a small mountain's worth of gravel shrapnel and other deadly stone-like projectiles to go barrelling unrestricted down the freeway.

Why are they allowed to do this? There is such a hubbub made about the road-side bombings in Iraq, and yet you hear nothing about the dump-truck induced war zone in our very own backyard. Am I the only one who has been driving along I-15, minding my own business, when all of a sudden a virtual shotgun blast of dirt and rocks begins to pummel the front of my vehicle?

And of course Murphy's Law dictates that you're most likely to have one of these unpleasant encounters after the installation of that nice, pristine new windshield. :) Surely there is a law against this on the books somewhere. My prediction is that it's just a matter of time before a large enough chunk has just the right combination of momentum and shape to be able to penetrate the windshield safety glass and maim an otherwise innocent driver.

Then and only then will the gatling-gun rivaling freeway "nuisance" reach the criminal equivalent of the vile and wicked stop sign roll.