Photo by Adam Muise on Unsplash
I’m ranting today. Have you noticed? More people are driving in the middle of the road. Here the menace is stone hauling semis and gravel trucks. The gravel trucks don’t have license plates. Someone’s political coffer is richer for this nonsense. It’s a real pisser because if they throw a stone and break your windshield, they can make an easy get away. You don’t have anything to identify the truck. Like when I bought my brand new Subaru.
Two weeks later a gravel truck threw a stone and dented my hood. However, a Piazza food truck backed into the car later and destroyed the hood and Piazza paid for the repair so it all worked out. True, the gravel trucks have an INDOT number so they’re registered with the State, but that number is on the door and usually unseeable from the rear and smeared with gravel dust and mud.
The trucks have this lame sentence painted on the tailgate that says, “Stay back 200 feet. Not responsible for broken windshields.” It’s the new highway robbery.
The gravel trucks have tarps to pull over the load, but it’s a rarity to see one of those actually in place. And they’re notorious for running you off the road as they haul ass around the curves, belching smoke and dropping gravel and stones on the road. I’ve had so many close calls and been in the ditch so many times I’ve lost count. We’ve complained but slowly the trucks creep over until they’re straddling the center line and never completely move over for on-coming traffic. Sometimes that happens with the stone hauling semis but usually those trucks try to miss you. The semi’s are so long though that even when the cab is between the lines, the trailer, with 100 tons of stone is still in your lane.
The County Gas haulers are a different story. They drive 100% in their lane and keep a reasonable speed. I guess you don’t get to haul flammable stuff and be a dangerous road hog. At least not for long. People bicycle this road. That scares the bejesus out of me.
So if you’re gonna drive country roads around the quarries, remember: you’ve been warned. The surfaces are two-lane country roads with serious pot holes and ditches, not berms, on either side. And when you get driven off the road…Beware. There is no mercy.
I declare this National Rant-o-thon Weekend and you can tell me all about how your neighbors’ cats keep using your flower bed for a litter box and how now they’re not speaking to you for dumping water on Fluffy and FooFoo in mid act. Hit reply and rant on!
PS: I help people learn self confidence through conversation. For you that might be relaxing at last in a room full of strangers and having a good time or finding a way to have that difficult conversation with heart. I take a limited number of one-on-one clients.
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