Monday, July 20, 2015

It's Your Fault

Check out this statistic that I just made up:

99.7% of accidents at construction zones are the result of driver inattention/error.

Probably a reasonable assumption.  But everybody makes mistakes, and that means that flag workers can make them, too.  Check out the following statistic I also just made up:

0.3% of construction zone accidents are caused because someone handed a traffic flag to an idiot.

You know, I don't want to say too much here because I respect anyone who has the pride, good sense, and motivation to go out and work for a living, but holding a stop/slow sign doesn't otherwise require a lot of brains.  That 0.3% can seem like a pretty strong possibility.

But it doesn't matter.   The 99.7% share is contaminated with reckless, inattentive, and egregious driving.  It's quite blinding and the dim 0.3% error doesn't stand a chance to be seen against it.

So when a flag worker is standing on the sidewalk 100ft behind where he wants you to stop, and, from that far away, he sends a car through a stop sign to your right, and that car pulling out blocks your line of sight toward the worker on the sidewalk and his sign, and then the worker yells at you and demands you need to pay more attention...

Well, honestly, that's never bad advice.  It applies easily in 99.7% of all situations.  Close enough.  Maybe you should stop being such a reckless asshole behind the wheel, asshole.

2 comments:

RONW said...

unfortunately, the designated flag waver isn't required to pass a flag waving course to direct traffic around road construction, tree trimming, etc. Plus they suppose to set up safety cones and a large sign a reasonable distance from where they sometimes turn into a traffic nazi.

blournalist said...

I really dread driving through construction zones anymore because I know that anything that goes wrong will be pinned on me. I was doing less than 10mph on Sunday in a dormant construction zone when the hidden flag worker lectured me about paying more attention.