A lot of people tend to look down on truck drivers, they drive badly, hog the road, cause accidents. Don't get me wrong, I know several truck drivers, all decent guys...and hey, I'm married to one.
Most drive carefully and responsibly, and by the way, that bad truck driver would be equally bad driving a car. Or a bicycle for that matter. He's just a bad driver period.
The other day my teenage daughter came home after having a scare crossing the street. She and some friends were crossing on a green light (walk signal up) and a truck wanted to turn in front of them, honking at them. Since they were halfway across, they didn't want to have to run back, but wound up having to run back fast when he continued anyway and they would have gotten hit by the trailer. Uh...don't they teach that pedestrians have the right of way?
The kids were all too shocked to get a name off the truck, and I was hoping that maybe some witness would see, note the name of the company and call to complain.
Turns out, someone did 'witness', but called the high school, complaining that students had crossed the street irresponsibly.
Why on earth, when so many people are over-eager to blame the truck driver, did he/she choose to side with the driver this time when the truck driver was at fault? Well, of course, his/her dislike of teenagers beat out dislike of truck drivers.
And of course, the principal took the witness' word as gospel and berated the students over the loudspeaker at school. I'm still tempted to call and complain myself. When my kids were smaller and said 'so and so hit me', although I believed them, I did NOT reprimand the other kid unless I saw it. Instead, I used a general 'we all know hitting is wrong, so nobody should be...'
I'm guessing the principal's not a parent. And maybe likes students a little less than he likes truck drivers.
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