Cautiously piloting his tractor-trailer along sunny two-lane Second Avenue at the posted speed limit of 35 mph while intermittently burping from the huge morale-boosting helping of “Kid Flesher’s Awesomely Hot Two-Gun Chili” he wolfed down at Tommy’s Texas Diner, John Doe reflected on a Channel 19 revelation recently provided by Billy Bob Goldfarb, a westbound doubles driver.
According to Goldfarb, Uncle Sam was poised to unveil a new version of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, featuring a question-and-answer format, whose final draft was a whopping 750 pages long! Holy eye strain, Batman, 10-4?
Suddenly, Doe’s reverie was … “Ahhhhgg!” SCREECH!! KA-BOOM!!! Oh no! Without warning, a sports car driven by teenager Muffy Mulquist had blindly and hastily exited a high-fenced apartment complex, only a few yards in front of Doe’s tractor! While he’d pounced on the brakes immediately and had tried to steer out of harm’s way, the car’s left front fender was a mangled mess. Mercifully, Mulquist was shaken up but otherwise unscathed.
Since Doe contested the preventable-accident warning letter from his safety director, the National Safety Council’s Accident Review Committee was asked to render a final judgment. NSC immediately ruled in Doe’s favor, noting that there was no way he could have anticipated Mulquist’s suicidal maneuver or avoided ramming her car with only a split-second warning.
