Week 12

One more week and I'll officially start my second trimester. Woo-hoo! According to the books, I'll swell up like Violet Beauregard chewing on defective gum. I can no longer wear any of my normal pants without cutting off the circulation to my lower extremities.

This past week all I felt was sleepiness spiced with occasional dizzines and nausea. Nothing new, in other words. Oh, only one psychotic crying jag episode. Jon's been pretty understanding in that area.

Traffic school, fortunately, was a hoot. The man who taught it was entertaining so the three hours I spent in class on Saturday flew by fast. While I completely disagree with getting the ticket, I found the class interesting and informative.

The main thrust of the class was statistics. Like I said, kudos to the officer who taught the class who made statistics palatable. I didn't know this: the #1 cause of accidents is failure to yield. And the instructor emphasized: the leading factor that exacebrates this problem is speed. In other words, my accident is a perfect example of this statistic: I did not see this guy and pulled out in front of him. He was hauling ass on a road with a 35mph speed limit. Had he been going the speed limit, he most likely would have stomped on his breaks, screeched to a halt, and righteously honked and given me the finger. But we both would have driven away. Instead he was going about 60 and he slammed into me still going pretty damn fast. We were both lucky we *walked* away.

I'm also reminded of the time some yahoo pulled out in front of me. I was going slow enough to where when I hit this woman I was going about 5 miles an hour. Neither of us sustained damage to our car. The vast majority of the people there were there because of speeding tickets.

Another eye opener was exactly why traffic law enforcement occurs. I bitched about the greedy court system (and I'm still not happy with what they do), but they're greedy the same way a businessman is greedy: not because they want more money than they know what to do with but because they are trying to remain solvent. Alabama is going to be #1 this year for fatal accidents (on average for the population). The federal gas tax ($.36 per gallon) is doled out to the states by the government but only if the state meets certain requirements. One of those is a low fatality rate. Many counties in Alabama are not getting this revenue. The ones who are have pretty strict traffic enforcement in their area. Apparently there is a high correlation between enforcement (or lack thereof) and accidents.

Oh, hey: did you know it's illegal to be in reverse on a main road? In other words you can't back out of your driveway nor can you back up into it.

So anyway, the class was interesting, and it vindicated my approach to driving. I haven't driven after drinking since I was in my 20's (and I did that very infrequently), and I do not go over the posted speed limit too much ( 3-5 mph over generally, I try to pay attention more in residential areas). Jon bitches that I drive like an old woman and now I'm proud of it. Still pissed about the ticket though.