If there was somehow a bonehead test people would have to pass in order to drive a car, I believe there would be a lot fewer cars on the road. There are three people I can think of who I’d like to take off the road…

1. Landcruiser lady–When I was 17 or 18 I was just learning how to drive a manual transmission and I talked my mom into letting me drive a truck she had borrowed from a friend. She went with me and we were returning it (the friend later became my father-in-law) I was having a lot of trouble at a stop sign getting the truck to move. I had stalled about 4 times and was really flustered. The 5th attempt resulted in a horrifying loud thump. My immediate thought was that I had somehow made the engine drop right out of the truck. My mom didn’t even know what happened. Then this lady was at her window knocking and saying I had backed into her. We both didn’t know how that could have happened, but taken off guard my mom exchanged insurance information with the woman driving a toyota landcruiser with a totally jacked up front bumper. We inspected the damage to the borrowed truck, and the rear steel bumper was completely crushed in the middle. Putting the truck in reverse is pretty hard to do by accident. And like I said the thump happened when we were stopped at a stop sign. It never entered our minds until afterward that the landcruiser woman could have lied to us. She had a cellphone, but didn’t call the police. Landcruiser woman called us several times saying that the damage to her bumper was over $1000 and we needed to pay up. My mom went to the beach and left me to deal with the woman and get my first lesson in being a grown up. My future father-in-law couldn’t have been more understanding. He even went with me to meet Landcruiser woman at the police station. He stuck up for me when Landcruiser woman tried to fabricate this story about how I threw the truck in reverse and crashed into her. In the end, the police officer told us that we’d both be fined for not reporting the accident and since my mom was in the car and she was a whitness for me Landcruiser lady was out of luck. So, frustrated, Landcruiser lady stormed off.

2. Drunk who hit my sister–A few years ago my little sister was driving my mom’s car and was stopped at a stop light when a drunk woman slammed into her, totalling my mom’s car. Jamie was fine, mostly except for a messed up back. The car was of course paid off. It took weeks of fighting with the drunk woman’s insurance company to get any kind of payment for the totalled car. This all happened on the heals of all kinds of financial upheavel from a traumatic year of underemployment for my dad. There was no question who was at fault, the police took the drunkard off in handcuffs. But my parents refused to sue her. I hate litigation and I even wanted them to. They had to buy a new car, add a car payment they weren’t ready to take on and besides, I wanted that drunk woman to really learn a lesson. She could have easily killed someone. But my parents, moral and good as they are wouldn’t even think of it. Hopefully the drunk learned her lesson anyway.

3. Heavyset woman in stiletto heels–I just got an email from my friend Tarsha saying that she is being sued for over $2million dollars. Tarsha and her husband are two of the most honest, hardworking, charitable people I know. They saw an accident happen on vacation, a horrific accident and somehow the idiot who crossed the median, slammed into a logger truck (tipping it over sending logs everywhere) and lived has decided to sue my friends. She dug up some “whitness” a month after the accident who says she saw my friends force her off the road. What. An. Idiot. Who in the #*%@! sues working-class people for $2 million dollars? I guess if I’m going to give heavyset woman in stilettos the benefit of the doubt, she might have suffered some brain damage in her accident. From my friend Tarsha’s blog:

“Here’s what’s going on now, nearly 2 years later. We went to a deposition in Danville on April 15th. While my hubby was allowed to sit in on the whole thing, I had to stay out in the waiting area. I was very happy to see the lady that was in the accident looking practically normal. I was truly happy… my hubby and I had stood in the middle of the median on that hot day, with critters jumping up and down around my legs (I HATE CRITTERS) and said a prayer for her. It was a long, fervent prayer that the person in the car would live and have as normal a life as possible. Her life must be pretty close to normal, because she was a rather heavy set person for such a small frame and she had on stilletto heels — I don’t even wear those!!! We still continue to pray for her: she still needs it.”

There was an actual whitness that my friend Tarsha talked to on the day of the accident who saw the whole thing from two cars behind Tarsha’s. But he “didn’t want to get involved” and wouldn’t make a statement to the police. Tarsha is looking for that whitness and would appreciate any help she can get from the internet.

“I need you to pass this message on to as many people as you possibly can to get my message out. I need this blog to make it’s way to Tunica, Mississippi, to the home of Charita Greene. She is (or was) the girlfriend of the man that told me he saw the accident. He seemed to not want to get involved for whatever reason. Maybe he was trying to avoid the police… I don’t know. What I do know is that if he were willing to write a statement and get it notarized or produce a signed affidavit, he wouldn’t have to come back to Virginia and deal with the good ol’ boys at the DPD and he would help us out. If you happen to know this person, e-mail me at missusjoy@gmail.com and let me know so that I can plead my case to her. Or maybe my e-mail can make it’s way to GMA or 20/20 and maybe someone there will take pity on us and help us find justice.”