I have had more than my share of accidents. Sometimes, I refer to myself as accident prone. Fortunately, I haven’t caused any big catastrophe…yet. Who knows? If the Lord keeps me alive for another ten or so years…

The short intro serves a little purpose. When I went out in search of a charging station the other day, I noticed the traffic was really bad. I mean, Goodman Road going through Southaven is prone to have heavy traffic but this was unusually bad. Moreover, all the businesses on the north side of the road were closed.

After a while, I found out the cause. It seems that a dump trunk operator forgot to lower the dump bed. Before he realized it, he pulled it through some power lines going across the street. Then, he proceeded pulling down five or six power polls with the wires.

Now, that is an accident. I pity the poor man. He either did work for someone, who immediately fired him or, if self employed, is facing bankruptcy… or worse.

I’m sure the man didn’t do it on purpose and likely everyone knows it. However, it is the sort of thing you don’t just say sorry and walk away from it. My guess is, once he realized what happened, he likely sat in the cab a cried for a while. I would have.

Invariably, the lawyers will get into it. Moreover, someone will have to pay for the repair. My guess is that the man’s liability won’t come close to covering it. He just might have to sell all he owns and he’ll still come up short. Maybe someone who knows how can set up one of those fund me pages. I’d contribute what I can.

I have no idea what the final outcome will be but I’m sure it won’t be good for that driver. It just took a moment to make the mistake and it will likely ruin his life, at least in the short term.

I hate it, but that is the way life is. In moments, things happen that change our lives for the worse and it simply cannot be removed with an eraser. Sometimes we bear the blame. I really do hope things turn out well for that driver. As near as I know, no one was hurt badly. At least he can take some solace in that.

It is one of many reasons I decided to leave the Marines. As I said, I do seem to be accident prone and I didn’t want one of my accidents to bring down an F4 with the crew of two. I went on to work on computers. If I make mistakes there, it can cause problems, but, well, there is just no way that I could have taken out the power for a couple of blocks on one side of the street. Those mistakes I made while working on computers were normally easily recoverable.

Yet we need guys like that driver. We need skilled folks who are willing to take the chance. Can you imagine what it would be like if no one would be willing to take the chance to drive the big trucks, knowing that their lives can be ruined in seconds.

As I sit here typing, I wonder, have we lost a good operator for one little lapse in memory? Is the man ever going to be able to drive again?

I don’t know. It’s really not my place to judge. I am sure there will be an investigation. But I sure hope we won’t lose all our truck drivers the first time the have an accident. It could end up making things bad for the rest of us. Not only that, given the risk, we just might start having a hard time finding men and women who are willing to take that risk for a reasonable wage.

I mean, the reason I left the Marines was because I didn’t want to take the risk. Fortunately, there are others who will and do.

As an aside, I would not have wanted to die for my country, but I would have. I just don’t know if I could stand it if I found out that I caused the death of another marine because of my mistake. I would not have liked that at all.

That truck driver. I’m sure he is having a tough time living through it too.