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Education Marketing, Sales, & Public Relations Sales, Marketing, Old Folks, and the Physically Challenged
Education Marketing, Sales, & Public Relations Sales, Marketing, Old Folks, and the Physically Challenged | Sales, Marketing, Old Folks, and the Physically Challenged |
| Written by Jeff Dobkin | |||||
Page 1 of 3 So I’m sitting in my car waiting for the accident to happen… Ladies and Gentlemen let’s get ready to crummmmbllle: In this corner of the parking lot, one of the world’s largest women, already sweaty, in her giant SUV and talking on her cell phone. Their combined weight, 7425 lbs. Folks, it looks like she’s just way too busy to put her phone down for a nanosecond and turn around, while backing out of her parking space. And in the other corner, in her ‘98 Buick Regal, one of the world’s oldest woman, just slightly younger than dirt itself. Wha? Whasat? Oh look - she’s proudly displaying a handicapped placard hanging on her rearview mirror. Folks, she’s practically boasting “I can drive like an idiot, I have the sign that permits me to do it!” And she’s creeping towards the SUV at the unnerving pace of a snail. Both contestants are edging towards each other and the inevitable bending of metal and chipping of plastic; and both seem oblivious to the approaching other. It’s a battle of the minds: which one will show up first… if at all? I sit patiently in a neutral corner, anxiously awaiting for one or the other to hit the accelerator and oh, the painful sound of metal on metal, er… plastic on plastic — as long as it isn’t mine… and no one gets hurt. Even I have my limits. Heck, if I didn’t have limits how would I know when I’m over them. Ironic, the old woman’s driving was authorized not by the Department of Transportation, but by her doctor: who declared her unable to walk more than 30 feet to a store, but allows her to try to control a 5,000 pound vehicle at 65 MPH. Now maybe I’m wrong here (I was wrong once in the summer of ‘03) but do I really want a person who can’t walk 30 feet through a parking lot driving right up close and personal next to me on the freeway… at 65 MPH in her ‘98 Buick? No… not really. Heck, last time I drove a Buick, sober even, even I had trouble keeping it in a single lane. I didn’t as much drive it as point it in a general direction and correct it as it floated from one lane to the other at every bump in the road. Well I guess there’s some good news here: the self-inflicted speed limit of 45 MPH on the freeway by most of the old folks, slowing the left lane so others don’t go too fast, keeps us all in check. Like me: I confess I’m always ten over. OK, let’s go off the record here for a moment… twenty over. Oh yea, thank goodness for the old folks. Hey, isn’t that speed limit sign just really a “suggested” limit? If they really wanted me to go that slow why’d they let me buy a car with 425 hp, 6 speeds and 9” wide tires? If the posted speed was anything but just a simple recommendation, seriously, they’d put a restrictor plate on my carburetor - like the one all NASCAR cars have. Yea, and it hasn’t been any fun watching races since they got them, either. But let’s get real: speed limit signs were designed in the 1940s - when cars weighed 8,000 pounds and took a full city block to stop from 40 mph. Today, I can pass my favorite ice cream store at 60 and if there’s no line at the counter I can stop by the time I need to turn into their driveway. Meanwhile, back in the parking lot (remember the parking lot) I laugh as both women - oblivious in their own little worlds - inch their way towards each other. Funny, I always thought the blind spot was towards the rear of the car. I guess now it’s right behind a cell phone or that giant handicapped placard. I digress. In 50 states it’s illegal to have anything dangle from your rear view mirror because it’s dangerous. But the 6” x 8” H/C sign, well that’s OK. The EZ Pass is OK, too, to have right there: stuck in the middle of your windshield. Go figure. From the safety of my car parked in a neutral corner I watch and wonder: what it is that makes old people lean forward as they drive? The older they get, the closer to the wheel they sit, until finally - they’re right-up snug against the steering wheel. Is their vision that much better from up there 8 inches closer to the front of the car? Is it better since they’re nearer to the road? Do they need that extra time to see things sooner than people who lean back against the headrest? |
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