Editor, Times-Union: I wanted to share an experience I had the other night in hopes people learn something from it. On Thursday night of last week, I was driving home from my workshop just north of town after doing some work on my truck. It was late, about 11 p.m., and I had just passed the movie theater heading back toward town. It was dark that night, barely a moon and streetlights only covered small patches of the road with light. I was driving 35 to 40 miles per hour when suddenly an old man appeared in the reach of my headlights, inching his way across the street with a cane in one hand and a bag of groceries in the other. He was walking out of the Martin’s grocery parking lot and heading toward Silveus Insurance. I had about a second to react, so I hit the brakes and swerved around the man, who was squarely in the middle of my lane, and who didn’t so much as look up when I passed him at a crawl. Thankfully, there were no cars coming toward me in the opposite lane, but I was pretty shaken up. It was like a scene from a movie, the speed at which he was walking put him directly in the middle of my lane by the time I reached him. After calming myself down, I realized that, had I been the least bit distracted while I was driving, be it texting, messing with my stereo or climate controls, distracted from someone else in the car, but especially if I would’ve been doing anything on my phone, I most certainly would have smashed this old man head on, at 35 to 40 mph. Him and his bag of groceries would not have stood a chance. I wanted to share this experience as a call to fellow drivers to please, please pay attention when you drive. Today, we’ve all experienced a constant bombardment of distractions, which we usually succumb to. Driving is one of the last tasks we perform, that we have to pay attention to. I’m amazed, daily, at the lack of focus people have when driving. I see swerving, stopping too late, sitting at green lights, etc, while looking down at their phone, presumably texting or doing some other task that couldn’t wait five minutes. I hope the future doesn’t reduce us to a state where we’re smashing our cars into each other because we couldn’t wait to upload a pic to Facebook or text our friend back. For my sake and yours, can we please not be a scene from “Idiocracy” and today, start driving smarter, stop playing with our phones when we’re driving, and remind those around us to do the same? You never know whose life you’re going to spare. Nate Hodorek Warsaw, via e-mail
