Tom Says: “Do joggers have brain cramps?”
A couple of times over the past month I’ve taken the opportunity to excoriate drivers and the bad habits which they’ve developed concerning red lights.
Today, I’ll focus on another problem on our roads — joggers.
This isn’t to say all joggers are wrong, but like drivers, some of them think they own the road.
I don’t want to downplay the physical fitness value of putting on the jogging suit, the two-hundred dollar shoes and grabbing the bottled water before heading out for a good run. I’m sure at the end of the day, for the most part, they feel better about themselves than I feel about me… But how some them live to finish their run is completely beyond me.
Case in point — It’s very early in the morning, before seven o’clock. Tom is on his way to work and it’s snowing like crazy. There are no street lights. When suddenly, on a road barely able to carry traffic going in opposite directions, Tom encounters a car travelling toward him — and at the last second — out of the corner of his eye, spots a jogger in a lovely white suit and white runners running through the snow.
Now, I know I didn’t him — because I heard neither a thud or a scream — but if I missed him by any more than three centimetres, I’ll eat his hat.
I didn’t hear anything on the news of a jogger being hit by anyone else, so it’s safe to assume that after having his brain cramp, he made it home okay.
Case number two.
It’s 7:30 at night in late October. So you don’t need to be told how dark it was.
Tom and his wife are returning home from a trip to the local grocery store. Lo-and-behold, he encounters two joggers running side by side on the road wearing — you guessed it — black jogging suits with no reflective tape.
Somehow, through the grace of God, (likely more good luck than good management,) Tom is able to swerve and miss the two of them.
Thank goodness no one else was in the other lane.
I wonder why in the world municipalities go to the expense of putting in sidewalks when joggers (after brain cramps) decide they belong on the road. I’ve heard of many encounters between cars and joggers but I haven’t heard of one where the jogger came out the winner.
I know we have to share the road, but common folks, a little common sense never hurt anyone.
I’m Tom Young.