On a delivery tonight, just past dusk on a side street off Carroll Manor Road, I slowed then slammed on my brakes and stopped as something which appeared to be a little boy ran out behind a parked car. In the brightness of my highbeams, I observed not a child but a huge owl, wings flapping — it had swooped down for an animal behind the car, and was now looking at me with its big round saucerplate eyes. It opened its talons, dropped its (unmoving) prey, and was gone into the air.

Owls are pretty fuckin’ cool, man.

The headlight I replaced last month?

It’s out again.

It’s the little things, y’know?

They should be called “Acts of Traffic Negligence.”

When I first got my driver’s license, my parents enrolled me in a defensive driving course. It was held at a race-track in West Virginia and taught by professional drivers who trained bodyguards and Federal agents how to drive offensively (for example, backwards at seventy miles per hour while returning gun fire). For an entire afternoon, we spun out on wet pavement in old Crown Victorias, learning techniques for everything from recovering from a series of spins to maintaining control of the vehicle when run off the road. The “final” was a speedy-fast lap around the track, dodging both stationary and mobile obstructions while a retired cop in the passenger seat shouted insults and did everything in their power to distract us.

I am quite certain that the techniques I learned in this class — in addition to the “behind the wheel” there was quite a bit of “anticipation” drilled into thick-heads — provided the foundation that makes me an above average driver today. I would go so far as to say that I think defensive driving classes should be required for anyone who wishes to operate a motor vehicle.

There was a cool fact I read somewhere — that in Germany, automobile makers didn’t start putting radios and cupholders in cars until the sixties, because until that time, they couldn’t understand why anyone would want to do anything but keep both hands on the steering wheel. Anything distracting the operator from the important job of safely operating a car was a foreign idea.

Most accidents are preventable. You look down at your radio and don’t notice the car ahead of you slowing to make a turn. You reach for your cell phone and don’t notice that your car is swerving into the next lane. I work with guys who don’t take just a soda to drink on delivery — they take a whole sub, one hand on the wheel, another shifting and holding their food intermittently. I don’t speed in the rain, or snow, and even before I had a Toyota I made sure my headlights were on before dusk. When it rains, my wipers go on. I signal every turn I make, and do a “courtesy” tap on my brake pedal when I downshift. I check my gauges and mirrors — side and rear — several times a minute. I try to anticipate what other drivers are doing — warning signs include vehicles moving forward at a red light, vehicles over the painted “stop” lines at intersections, drivers looking one way for a clear in traffic but not the other.

Yesterday evening, a vehicle — a Jeep Wrangler — attempted to make a right hand turn onto Southern Ave. from Jarrettsville Pike. The Honda Civic behind the Jeep slowed. The Dodge Ram behind the Civic did not slow, impacted the Civic, and turned it into an accordian against the back of the Jeep.

I didn’t see this. Old Man Frank did and told me after returning from a delivery.

This wasn’t an “accident.” Traffic accidents — true, honest, actual accidents — are, I think, very rare (even rarer than me sharing my bed with a hot chick, so, roughly non-existant). No, this wasn’t an accident — both the Wrangler and the Civic behaved as best as anyone can tell, properly. And to tell the truth, it doesn’t matter if the Wrangler signaled its turn or not — once it began to brake, and the Civic began to brake, the operator of the Dodge Ram should’ve seen the brake lights and applied his.

There are, as I see it, one very good explanation for the “accident” … the operator of the Dodge Ram failed to leave sufficient space between his vehicle and that which he was following.

One of my cardinal rules of driving? Whenever possible (i.e., not stopped at a red light), I leave a minimum of two car-lengths between me and the vehicle I’m following. And when a vehicle follows me closer than that … well, that’s what down-shifting is for.

This “accident” never should have happened. The majority of accidents should never happen. Be careful. More importantly: be aware.

So this guy comes in yesterday.

“…Ask you a question?”

“Sure.” I’m assuming his question has to do with our menu. Or our delivery area. Payment methods, maybe.

“My dad wrote me this check, but when he was signing it, the pen ran out of ink, so he got another pen of the same color ink and signed over his first signature. Think the bank’ll take it, or give me trouble?”