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Pay attention when you’re behind the wheel

This appeared in a volume of poems printed in the late 1950s or early ’60s by Cortez radio station KVFC.

“If Everyone”

If everyone who drives a car would be a month in bed,

With broken bones and stitched-up wounds, or fractures of the head,

And there endure the agonies that many people do,

They’d never preach safety any more to me or you.

If everyone could stand beside the bed of some close friend,

And hear the doctor say “No Hope” before the final end,

And see him there unconscious never knowing what took place,

The laws and rules of traffic I am sure we’d soon embrace.

If everyone could meet the wife and child and children left behind,

And step into the darkened room where once the sunlight shined,

And look upon the vacant chair where Daddy used to sit,

I am sure that reckless drivers would be forced to think a bit.

If everyone who takes the wheel would say a little prayer,

And keep in mind those in the car depending on his care,

And make a vow and pledge himself to never take a chance,

The Great Crusade for Safety then would suddenly advance.

– Gladys Innes, state grange lecturer; contributed by Floreen Herron.

People here and across the nation are recklessly driving faster and faster, causing an increase in accidents. Get off the phone and slow down! We’re not in that big of a hurry.

Wade Wilson

Lewis