Be safe, be seen and stay alive

I know this may not be an earth-shattering subject, and I admit it is a pet peeve of mine, but something has to said. My new day job has me out on the road all over the Valley. I enjoy it quite a bit. It gives me a chance to meet a wide variety of people and to find out just how big this Valley really is.

Because of all this road travel I encounter good weather and bad, good drivers and frankly more than few bad ones as well. You know, the people with a cellphone stuffed into an ear or even worse, texting while driving. The latter scares the willies out of me. Those are just two of my peeves. The other thing that gets my goat is people driving with no headlights on, and usually in the worst kind of weather to boot.

Come on people. Light them up in the rain. Light them up during a snowstorm. And please, please turn the darn things on during fog. Recently on my way to work in a heavy fog, I had more than a few scares by morons running dark in a fog so dense one could barely see past 30 feet. No joke, and I’m not laughing about it one bit.

In fact, do what I do. I drive with them on all the time rain or shine, day and night (I have seen a few idiots at night going in “stealth” mode). All it takes is a flip of the switch or the turning of a knob, two seconds of your time so you can be seen by others sharing the road with you, including myself. It’s better than having a dark shape jump out at you from behind a heavy curtain of fog while making a turn. That could turn into a shorts changer or, worse yet, a wreck that sends someone to a hospital bed for a long time or the grave.

This also applies to law enforcement officers I have seen driving without lights on even in highway safety corridors, like the one on Knik-Goose Bay Road, which is an accident magnet. There are signs telling everyone to drive with their lights on while navigating this nasty section of roadway. Sometimes people forget. I’m one of them, too. Heck, nobody is perfect.

Just please make the effort. Stay off the cellphone. For God’s sake, lay off texting and driving. I like breathing and I have no desire to meet my Creator just yet. A posted speed limit of 40 mph does not mean 65 mph. Let’s keep it below the sound barrier. Last of all, put your headlights on for all of our sakes. Even when you can see OK, headlights help me see you too. While we can’t control the four-legged hazards we see on the road, we can try to modify the driving habits of the two-legged types. That means we humans, in case you’re wondering. Be safe, be seen and stay alive.

Wasilla resident Daniel D. Grota retired from the U.S. Army after more than 21 years of service.