"Daytime Running Lights"

And how they've changed our society.

I thought I would sneak a little post in just to see if anyone noticed. You see I had this brilliant thought while running yesterday and needed to put it down somewhere. Now those who have read my blog in the past may argue that while I may have accidently had a brilliant thought at some point in my life, this would certainly be the first time I expressed it via this medium or any other medium for that matter. To all of those people I simply say "up yours" and stop reading now!

But enough. Here's the proof either of my brilliance or lack thereof.

Do you remember when all the cars in a funeral procession would turn on their headlights and snake through town, not stopping for any red light or stop sign on the way to the cemetary? And every vehicle, every pedestrian and every stray dog would respectfully delay their own progress to make a small gesture to the faithful departed? Yah well I remember!

And that just doesn't happen any more because you know why everyone stopped for the procession? They had their lights on! That's how you knew it was a funeral, and that was your cue to stop at a green light for 2 minutes while they passed. Now everybodys lights are on all the time and so either you don't notice the funeral, or at least you can pretend you don't.

But who cares you may ask? After all the guy is freakin dead so he don't care, and everbody else in the procession is either too greived to care or on the opposite end, never liked the guy anyway.

Well guess what my friends. It ain't about the dead guy and how it affected him that everyone took a time out to consider his death. It's about the 2 minutes you(the live one) were forced to take and what most human beings would do during that 2 minutes. I probably don't have to tell you. You would instinctively consider your own mortality and that of your loved ones, and I would be willing to bet that most people would suddenly not be in so much of a hurry, and for at least the rest of that day would be a little kinder and a little slower to bitch about something.

So if you add up all the funerals and multiply that by the amount of people who were forced to stop and thereby were a little kinder and a little gentler for an entire day you would have a lot more decency in this world!

I rest my case. That is how daytime running lights have changed our society for the worse.

It also occurs to me that if we didn't have day time running lights we would have a few more car accidents, resulting in a few more deaths, and the accompanying compassion it would bring to our world via the funeral procession would be a very good thing. Perhaps the seat belt law needs reconsidered as well huh?

....and how fitting is this quote? It's good to know that I can always defer to Emily if I need a little brilliance...

"Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me.
The Carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality"---Emily Dickinson

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