On most Florida streets, roads and
highways, we have a fast lane, a slow lane and a death lane.
As if to accent what was said a
few blogs back about these so-called bike lanes straddling busy streets and
highways: A 12-year-old kid over at
Daytona trusted that white line to keep him safe while he was skateboarding; he
had no reason to doubt the people who painted that white line or the elected
officials who sanctioned those white lines because trust is a key
component of a twelve-year-old’s mental makeup; trust at that age hasn’t been entirely beat out of a kid yet. So, the boy is now six feet under and twelve
forever, and the white lines are still there luring the tweener skateboarder,
the brain-dead thirty-something cyclists and the senile three-wheelers with their bizarre
bulbulous helmets w/visors, as well as the mopeders, joggers, walkers, creepers, crawlers, and
anyone else crazy enough to think that a painted white line will save them from
a two-ton chunk of momentum moving at 55 MPH.
Sad fact is: A motorist does not need to be blind, drunk, drugged, or
senile to run over someone in those death zones—one need just take their eye off the road for a second and someone is 12-, 33- or 75-years-old
forever.
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Speaking of Distraction--Two
sixteen-year-old girls were cruisin’ the streets up at St. Pete last Friday
night, just cussin’ and funnin’ and being young girls. The driver took her eye of the road for a moment—maybe
to see who was texting, maybe to sip a coke, maybe to light a joint—and that
was quite enough. In a sec, the car drifted across
the slow lane, lurched across the bike lane, jumped the curb and crashed down the
side walk. When the vehicle finally came to
a rest the shaken driver walked away. Her friend, however, was going no where. The guard rail had crashed through the
windshield and speared the young girl dead center, ending her life instantly. Had a cyclist, a jogger or a skate boarder
been in the death lane, they too would be part of the body count.
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Up at Venice, a local thief and stoner
was riding his bike around hoping to some way, some how, score some dope from some one. Spotting an old lady creeping from a store,
our biker boy saw dollar signs. Pedaling full tilt, it was a simple matter to jerk the
purse loose and be gone in a flash. Not
so very long after, the culprit was seen sitting, for all the world to see, at a bus stop. The thief was ID'ed, arrested, printed, mugged, jugged, and charged with “robbery by sudden snatching” (not to be confused with, I suppose,
“robbery by slow snatching”).
Ironic Names Hall of Fame
Josh Stoner, 32, North Port,
Florida (local thief and stone stupid stoner)
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Speaking of NP--Over at Charlotte
County Crime Central (aka North Port), seems like that on one certain-certain road there is a midnight murder or
a domestic disturbance or a meth explosion or a high noon road rage incident virtually
every 24.
I know it ain’t so, but at times it seems so. Some poor duster was shot in the chest just the
other day on the same road. Since North
Port is the epicenter of Charlotte County crime, let’s just say this road is
the epicenter of North Port crime.
Ironic Mis-Names Hall of Fame
Harmony Road, North Port, Florida
