KEN'S KORNER - APRIL 2007
HUMAN SPEED BUMPS
BY AUTHOR, EDUCATOR
& DRIVER KEN SKAGGS
What do you think
of when you hear the term human speed bumps? Do you picture people lying
in the road? Do you picture yourself running over those people and the
bump you might feel as you go over them? Or, do you see yourself driving
around all those people, so you don’t run them over? Do you picture
yourself lying in the road? Do you picture an old person driving slowly
in the hammer lane in a Buick? Or, does the phrase conjure up images
of people getting in your way in one form or another? If you answered
the latter, you’d be right. Of course, any answer is “right” because
this is not a test - it’s just a rhetorical look at a funny phrase.
As for me, I had
never heard the term human speed bumps. I thought I made it up, so it
conjured up all of those hilarious images above. Of course, the term
actually does have a meaning and is used in certain circles, but I had
no idea at the time. Maybe that was just me. And maybe you already knew
that. Either way, I thought I’d take a drive into (or over) the subject,
so to speak. So, if you’ll indulge me, I’ll get on with it.
The first mention
of human speed bumps, for me, brought to mind an incident a few years
ago when some anti-war protestors were lying in the road at the Golden
Gate Bridge in San Francisco. They were blocking traffic, just lying
there in the road, trying to disrupt normal life and get their message
across. I wondered what I would do if they blocked me. If I was pressed
for time, I’d be tempted to inch my truck forward and threaten them
into moving an inch, then another inch, etc. But if I did that, the
mob would probably attack me and I’d have to floor it out of there,
killing a few speed bumps on the way. Or, maybe I would just go into
my sleeper and call it break time. One thing is for sure - if I was
a newspaper reporter covering that story, my headline definitely would
have been - Human Speed Bumps!
I asked my neighbor,
who is an owner operator, what he thought a human speed bump was and
he quickly answered, “A person who got run over by a car.” We had a
laugh then talked about the fact that if it were a truck that ran them
over, there would be no bump about it. Neither one of us ever ran over
a person (thank God) but we have both ran over animals. I ran over a
family of raccoons once with my truck and didn’t feel a thing, but I
hit a rabbit in my car and felt all kinds of bumps. He told me that
he once ran over a deer and there was indeed a bump. We came to the
conclusion that a human being would definitely be a bump, but a bump
neither of us ever wanted to feel.
Of course, running
over a person is not funny at all, unless you happen to be watching
the cult film classic Soylent Green - the old 1973 science fiction movie
starring Charlton Heston, Edward G. Robinson and Chuck Connors. The
strange title of the film refers to the food they had to eat in the
year 2022, when all vegetation was gone and over-population was a huge
problem. So, the government decides that it’s okay to kill people. You
could run someone over and laugh about it, as many did, even scoring
points sometimes. Then, trash trucks would come and collect the dead
bodies. I won’t give it away, but it’s a cool, funny, yet scary and
weird movie. If you’ve seen it, you know what I mean, and if not, you
really ought to give it a look.
Another old movie
made about running people over was called Death Race 2000. What a classic!
Made in the early 1970s, the movie starred a young Sylvester Stallone
and David Carradine who were race car drivers, of the future, participating
in a cross-country race in which “extra points” were awarded for hitting
pedestrians. Again, running people over is wrong, but in these old films
it actually seemed funny and acceptable (good thing these movie plots
have not come to pass - yet).
If you do an internet
search on “human speed bumps” you quickly find out what they really
are - people who get in the way of business or progress. For example,
a human speed bump might be a fellow employee who always objects to
any risks. Some companies purposely put a human speed bump in their
board meetings to keep the company in check, so they don’t do anything
too risky. Often referred to as a doubter, a human speed bump also usually
has negative expectations about a lot of things. Anyone who gets in
your way, slowing you down, is a human speed bump, too. So, I guess
that would include an old person driving slowly in the hammer lane (or
anyone for that matter), disrupting the business of a truck driver.
So, the next time
someone slows you down, realize they are a human speed bump. But please,
don’t run over them! Thanks for playing along. And, when you get a chance,
please check out www.bigcitydriver.com,
as I just recently added a few new pages, including a practice CDL test
and a blank Bill of Lading. I put the Bill of Lading on my website because
there were times when I wished I could have found one and printed it
out, but simply couldn’t find one online. So now I know where to get
one any time I need it, and so do you! Talk to you next month.
Copyright
© 2007 10-4 Magazine and Tenfourmagazine.com
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