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Sunday, August 10, 2008

Flying the orange flag

When I think of orange, I usually think of Cheetos. I was even somewhat sympathetic when I read this story about police following an odd orange trail to catch alleged Cheetos thieves.

But I'm not flying an orange flag because I touched it after eating Cheetos, but because it's a safety flag. I live in a crowded area with groups of tourists, students and drivers who are from out of town - and lost. After having a near death encounter with a truck the other day in my power chair, I decided to give in and put an orange safety flag on my chair. And, although putting up the safety flag felt a bit like waving the white flag of surrender, I knew it was far better than finding myself under the wheels of a vehicle, in which case I risked never eating a bag of Cheetos again.

Luckily I had a safety flag on hand and Meredith was able to find a way to attach it securely. So it was time for the acid test. When I reached the part of town with the most traffic, what usually feels like playing the Need for Speed:Wheelchair edition video game resulted in only one car- a taxi - entering the crosswalk after I was already in it. The taxi went on its way, brushing past my wheelchair and the driver did see me- so visibility wasn't the problem.

Safety first. And the orange does go well with the decals I'm adding to the chair. Pictures to come after we get a chance to put them on.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Traffic gets crazy around here. It's not surprising that your close encounters were with a truck driver and taxi driver ignoring the rights of pedestrians since those laws don't get enforced. They'd pay more attention if they got tickets, huh?

Jack

Ruth said...

Yeah I agree. The taxi cab driver was completely outrageous and I wish I was able to get the license number - or better yet a picture but I was too busy trying to survive. Today the flag got caught on my door as I went out - which screwed up my system to exit so I had to go to the hardware store, buy a new bungee cord (which broke) etc etc. Kind of difficult not to get annoyed at having to deal with extra work because of bad drivers.

Anonymous said...

I'd hate having to put a flag on my chair but then I'm driving.