Liblog: Look Both Ways

February 24, 2007

Look Both Ways

I was listening to a show on NPR and they were talking about the CSI effect and how it is changing the expectations of juries and how investigations are now often run with an evidence-heavy perspective. I have watched my fair share of CSI and other crime shows but I generally see through their wildly unrealistic evidential circumstances and quick lab results. And I am used to this. I know that it is part of the show; that I can allow myself to believe for this moment that it is possible to get a DNA match from a phantom saliva sample in just under 24 hours. I have gotten accustom to other things on these shows as well. The gruesome images of victims and the twisted work of violent predators. I have even seen some pretty crazy and disgusting things in movies where people get shot or tortured. And it's sad to think that I am sort of used to these things now. I'm used to seeing people die on TV. But I realized tonight that there is one type of accident that I just can't desensitize myself to: anything involving a moving car. Car accidents. And one of the worst sort of car accident (the kind that even shocks an audience when it's on a screen) is when somebody is hit by a car.

I saw a girl get hit by a car last night. The sound was terrible. And the person she was with screamed the kind of scream you know is pure terror. It was just so intense and sad and scary and frantic. After seeing crazy things on TV shows, this was anything but unreal. It felt so real that it made me sick.

Please please please look before you cross the road, and be careful getting into your car when you park on the street.

Posted by libbystokes at February 24, 2007 04:09 PM

Comments

Libby,

That sounds like a terrible experience. I promise I will always look both ways before crossing the road, and I will make a point to talk less on the cell phone as I drive.

I hope you are doing well. I miss you.

John

Posted by: John Pattison at February 28, 2007 06:07 PM