Safety Training

I had to take driver safety training this evening. It’s an online thing that my company asked me in their best “would you mind doing this so we don’t have to boot your ass to the curb?” voice. It’s designed to shore up areas where your driving skills may be weak. It seems, according to my car and my girlfriends car, that backing up isn’t my best driving trait. So far I’ve hit 1 car, 1 telephone pole knocking out power to an entire block the day before Thanksgiving (talked about people being pissed) and backed through a garage door. That wasn’t my fault though. I swear. Ask my Mom.

Driving forward I’m a champ.Talking on the phone while working on my computer, eating a Snickers, changing the channels on the satellite radio and steering with my knees at 85mph? No normal person could do that. For me, not a problem. Flipping through a legal pad, making notes, and carrying on a client call. Yawn, I don’t even need caffeine to help me wake up for that. The master of moving forward, and at high rates of speed I am. I may get a ticket in the mail soon. I got flashed by the photo radar van, and by flashed it’s not a good thing. Guess what that means though? More safety training!!!!!! Actually it means in AZ (this isn’t legal advice btw) just ignore the ticket and after 90 or 120 days they have to drop it.

Going backwards, well, umm it’s a different story. This is what happens when you hit another car at 3mph.

Unbelievable! It’s a good thing no one has rear ended me, especially if they were going more then 3mph. I have no idea why them call these things bumpers. You can’t bump into anything or you need a new one. If someone rear ended me, my rear end would be in front of the front end. They would turn my car inside out. No way that can be good for you or your car. Never tried it, not signing up to either. If your driving behind me, don’t f*cking hit me. Please.

I did learn several cool facts in driver training. I was even tested on them. Because testing me on facts is going to make me a better driver. Much better. Especially since I failed the first test. At least I passed on my second try. All in the name of safety, I feel safer, can’t wait to see if I am safer tomorrow.

I thought some of the facts you need to know are:

Fact 1: The average person drives 25,000 miles per year. Besides belching out a huge carbon footprint, only five of those miles are in reverse. Do the math. What are the odds that you’re going to hit something? I defy the odds. I’m a bookie’s worst nightmare, the long shot making good. Bet on me. Just don’t park behind me.

Fact 2: Annually there are 117 adult deaths and 273 children deaths attributed to going in reverse. You’ve seen my bumper, imagine what would have happened if I was going 5 or 10 miles an hour.

Fact 3: Every 1.6 minutes someone backs into trouble. I stole that line straight from the training. You just can’t make up stuff like that.

Fact 4: Just over 10% of all collisions happen in reverse. Not that you undo the collision where you just ran into a telephone pole, although I bet you wish you could do take that back, I know I do. So if you go backwards 1 mile for every 5000 you go forward and 10% of collisions occur when going in reverse, quick someone do some math for me and give me the odds. I’m calling my bookie, but only when driving forward. Never in reverse, the odds seem against me.

I also thought some almost facts would be fun as well.

Sort of fact #1: I live in parking lots and back up 10-15 times per day. This means I’m a better backer uper then you.

Sort of fact #2: Just in case my boss or company reads this, I really don’t talk on the phone and work on my computer at the same time. I text instead.

Sort of fact #3: Since I’ve been in pharma, I’ve driven over 300,000 miles. This makes me one of the top 1,000,000 polluters in the world I’d guess. But I recycle. And I didn’t get invited to the climate talks in Copenhagen. I’ve always wanted to go to Denmark.

Sort of fact #4: My boss just got his new car 2 weeks ago. I have a meeting tomorrow. I’m going to park in front of him to practice my new backing up skills.

So be safe kids, I’m out there everyday backing up.