Wash hands, prevent crashes

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Updated Jul 23, 2013

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has announced a nine-year plan to reduce crashes by making sure you’re not fat. They really said it would take nine years to force truckers to be fit. I’m wondering how long they’ve set aside to force four-wheelers to not be stupid. I don’t think “infinity and beyond” looks good on a budget plan, so they’ve probably left that one off their list of “what it will cost us to arbitrarily force people to do things.”

They seem to be fond of the phrase “in order to reduce crashes.” It’s widely rumored that in order to reduce crashes, FMCSA is considering mandating hand-washing. Slippery fingers cause fiery accidents, not to mention possible rabies contagion. Of course, those religiously opposed to hand-washing can get a note from their Mommy to be excluded. However, prayer before or after hand-washing will be banned and punishable by hefty fines and lengthy lecture. There will, of course, be an exception to the rule for those missing digits, as the incomplete data has pointed toward the correlation between ten slippery fingers and fiery crashes. Eight and under is an acceptable number of slippery fingers. But only in New Jersey and Alaska. Refer to amended guidelines for the “eight and under rule.”

When a government agency openly admits it’s going to take them nine years to do something, they’re basically saying it ain’t never gonna happen. They may as well be spending their time planning on changing the color of the sky. Vast amounts of money and time are going to be wasted, and it’s going to be OK. Because they told us from the beginning it was going to take nine years, we should have known better. Gah. When are you dumb taxpayers going to learn smoke-and-mirrors-speak?

I have an idea to reduce the number of crashes. How about enforce the cellphone bans on the highways? Or how about go after the idiots in four wheelers, who cause 70 percent or more of the crashes that happen, and prosecute them for doing things like shaving their legs while driving? Seriously, it should be noted somewhere that it might be a little dangerous to tend to personal hygiene while traveling at high rates of speed. I realize it may come as a shock to the FMCSA, being that none of them have ever actually used the highway in a big truck, but people are out there doing some crazy stuff while operating a vehicle at 75 mph. I watched, in horror, as a rather large woman wrestled her bra like an angry boa constrictor in Houston traffic. She was either trying to take it off, or it had become animated and was attempting to choke her out. Whatever the case, it caused her to endlessly careen from lane to lane, alternately slamming on brakes and speeding up. It was terrifying. Her driving was awful, too.

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Cattle Crossing Road SignI have it on good authority the FMCSA will be unveiling their “We are the Borg” campaign sometime next year. It will require drivers to look directly into an inward-facing dashcam every 30 seconds and moo. The incomplete data points to a drastic reduction in crashes among herds. Because it’s incomplete. We all know cows run over each other all the time, it’s just never widely publicized. It will take approximately eleventy-seven years to implement, and cost the professional driver his soul, along with 90 gabillion dollars. But an estimated three lives a year will be saved, and approximately 900  head of free-roaming cattle. Progress, people, progress.