Coroner and Parent Trying to Forestall Death Isn't Easy

A death occurred over the weekend, actually several occurred, but I am writing about just one of them.

A woman riding/driving a motorcycle died after being hit from behind by a car. I talked to reporters and gave them part of the story: the motorcyclist had stopped at a yellow light, the driver of the car was driving distracted (I would not give any details as to what that entailed) and did not stop for the yellow light, striking the motorcycle. The motorcyclist was thrown from her cycle and was pronounced dead at a local hospital shortly after the crash.

The next reporter to call, called after seeing the story on the website of the first reporter’s newspaper. He said he read in the posted article that the driver of the car was doing her nails and asked if that was indeed the case. Apparently, the first reporter got the story from law enforcement personnel involved in the investigation of the case.

Subsequent newspaper stories were not too careful with attribution of that part of the story, so many have assumed it came from me. Oh well, what can you do.

Beyond that, I really wanted to write about another aspect of the whole deal. After the call from the second reporter (he was only one of four reporters I talked to on Sunday about the death) I talked with my 18 year old daughter about the death, always trying to impress upon her to make good choices and not take chances. I mentioned that the story was up on the Internet about the distracted driver in the crash. My daughter’s response was that she sure wasn’t going to do her nails while driving again.

I wouldn’t have guessed that she would ever do such a thing, but apparently so. As a parent it is difficult to think of all the things you need to warn your children about. That is an incredibly difficult job.