Are we, as students, becoming reckless?

Perhaps “reckless” is too ironic of a word to use in this situation, considering my position that students need to stop hitting things with their cars. “Reckless”? Maybe not …

Before anyone retorts by saying that I’m being insensitive to the victims of these accidents by joking about it, let me say that I do sympathize, really. I hope that any of the Grand Valley State University students sent to the hospital have a full and speedy recovery. Really, I’m not that much of a sadist.

At the same time, though, I have a difficult time convincing myself (and others) that there is a serial hit-and-run-ist stalking our peers around Michigan Campuses in Allendale. It begs too many questions: Why here? Why now? Why MCA?

So really, what is up with all of these accidents? A previous issue of the Grand Valley Lanthorn reported that yet another person was struck by another car – a skateboarder this time. If bikers aren’t safe, and skateboarders aren’t safe, then who’s next? Rollerbladers? Scooterists? Piggy-back riders?

The whole situation seems a little too similar to the M. Night Shyamalan movie, “The Happening.” This is troubling for two reasons:

1) It means that plants may be causing people to become aggressive homicidal maniacs.

2) It means I can use the phrase, “The whole situation feels like an M. Night Shyamalan movie,” without any hint of sarcasm.

At this point, I refuse to believe that three accidents in less than a month is the result of coincidence or lack of sidewalks. I’ve shared my distaste for pedestrians before, but in the spirit of fairness, I also have to attribute fault to the drivers. At this point in the year, roads are getting icy, and we should all unplug a bit from our headphones or our texting-while-driving mannerisms.

Also, is it too much to ask for pedestrians to abide by the rules we all learned when we were 5 (i.e. holding hands when crossing the street)? Because if one of us is going down, we’re all going down.

Let’s see that Taurus play Red Rover.

Actually, I was referring to looking both ways before crossing the street. If, by some divine miracle, a walker manages to cross the road within the confines of the crosswalk, they should realize that they aren’t protected by a force field. We don’t have that technology yet, and your arrogant disregard for the high-speed, two-ton vehicle operated by a distracted driver isn’t going to speed up the engineering process any.

But if it did, technological breakthroughs would be massive.

Maybe I’m just being cynical. It just worries me that we’ve grown desensitized to cars hitting people. Reports of any new collisions are likely to be met with the same enthusiasm society has upon seeing a trailer for an upcoming M. Night Shyamalan movie: “Another one? Seriously?”

I think I’m about as ready for another accident as I am for “The Last Airbender 2.” Really, I’m not that much of a sadist.

[email protected]