Early last May, Anita Zaffke was riding home on her Honda Shadow from her son’s house. They had  been making plans for the upcoming Mother’s Day weekend. As she approached a traffic light, it turned yellow.  She came to a stop and waited for the light to change again.

While she was waiting, another woman driving a car struck her from behind, throwing Anita and the bike several hundred feet forward.  Folks who were on the scene called 911 and tried to help Anita.  Meanwhile, the police arrived and started talking to the car’s driver. She kept saying she didn’t see the motorcycle until she’d already hit it.  She finally told the police that she didn’t see the stopped bike because she was painting her nails.

Because so many people multi-task while driving or riding, her son formed the Black Nail Brigade to call attention to this problem. It’s not always alcohol or drugs that cause impaired judgment – it can be talking on a phone, kids screaming in the backseat,  or simply changing the radio station or CD.

A friend of mine is in the hospital now, because someone was driving impaired- the person driving the other car was reported to be on drugs. She crossed the line and hit him almost straight head-on.  He lost his left foot in the accident, and had lots of other injuries, including fractures in his backbone. Thankfully no spinal cord injury happened, and the hospital is taking good care of him.

But when are folks going to learn that an 800 pound bike, or a 2,000 pound car is not something to mess around with? When you get behind the wheel, you’ve got to keep your mind on what you’re doing. I’m guilty myself of talking on the cell phone while driving- my excuse is I can answer my phone one-handed and keep my eyes on the road.  But that’s not good enough.

We’ve got good laws in place to take care of this- we just need to let our law enforcement officers know that we want them to stop people who are not paying attention. And we’ve got to quit saying, “well, why are they picking on me? they should be out stopping the real criminals.” Because  it could just as easily been someone who was distracted by a cell phone, or a backseat conversation, or  something on the floor (or gum on a shoe)  who hit my friend. It could have been any one of us.

All it takes is a few seconds…

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