[Basspig]

Here in CT, it IS against the law to use a cell phone while driving, but I see people fifty times a day doing it, so no one's paying attention. But it doesn't have to be a cell phone. A lot of teenagers are just plain 'spaced out' while driving, especially when there's a friend in the car with whom they are conversing and they don't notice the line of stopped traffic. I witnessed a fatal accident about ten years ago in which a pickup truck was waiting to make a left turn and was struck by an auto filled with teenagers. The car went under the truck, it's right rear wheel crushing the driver of the car. The thing I remember most was the truck flying up in the air and bouncing back down, and 3 very obviously scared teens rapidly exiting that car.

It does not go unnoticed by me, the coincidence between the purchase of the Ford Explorer and the sudden crop of rear end collisions. It is as if people can't see the color red. Or large vehicles directly in front of them. Back when I had the Caddy and the Olds, I never got hit--not so much as even a light tap. I used to drive a black pickup, and never got hit in that either. Then I got the SUV and all of a sudden I'm getting hit with regularity. Circumstantially, it does make one wonder...

I'm no expert on statistics or the dynamics of public behavior behind the wheel, but, all other things being assumed similar as always, the new things seem to be more electronic gadgets to be played with while driving. I can't say whether there is another factor, such as a fundamental shift in public attitudes toward driving. The woman that hit me wasn't born yesterday--she was born in '67, so old enough to have had some experience driving, I should hope. Perhaps in her case it was a momentary lapse of consciousness, or maybe overwork and lack of sleep. Lord knows I can understand that people are working two jobs just to pay the rent and taxes these days and I've watched television documentaries on sleepy drivers and the carnage that results when someone loses consciousness behind the wheel. However, I've been injured, I've already lost a day of work (I'm self-employed and losing a day of field engineering means $750 lost to a competing contractor), and I'll lose more days until the insurance companies settle on who's liable and can release funds to handle a car rental.

For my next replacement vehicle, I'll think I'll be looking for something like a retired city plow truck. I don't feel like going through this again with another SUV made of sheet metal.

Occasionally you see a PSA on television that dramatizes a point about what a drunk driver did to a family, or something of similar ilk, but I think the vast majority just ignore these ads, thinking "they're just actors and it's a drama", so I don't have much hope that an ad campaign would be effective at all. What other methods of getting the word out to drivers --especially of non-English-speaking nature (the last two that hit me were both Hispanic) would be effective? I think word would travel like wildfire if they simply made distracted driving a felony and automatic arrest with a minimum 30-day jail sentence, but it would be a challenge to prove that the person was distracted and not having a seizure or a bout of narcolepsy at the moment before impact. Circumstantially, it should be pretty easy to tell, especially in a case like mine--the woman would have to be blind or unconscious not to see a line of stopped vehicles at a red light.

I've got to make an appointment with an orthopedic specialist on Monday and start a physical therapy program. I've decided to consult with an attorney, which is very un-like me, but in this case, I see no excuse for this type of accident and I've got a constant pain to remind me of it. I can't even haul my own trash out to the recycling center, and I can't lift my own daughter without pain now. Considering that this is #5 since 2002, I'm getting pretty fed up in general.

I wish to thank everyone here for the outpouring of kind words. It's not like that on some other boards. I get a lot of insults and smug remarks hurled at me on another board where I mentioned my rant in their "rants" discussion area.