Yesterday around 4:30 in the afternoon, I was sitting here writing when I heard the sound outside of the bi-monthly traffic accident at my corner. We have them about that often and so far, no one has been seriously injured in any of them, though I suppose it's just a matter of time.
I peeked out and saw it involved a grey sedan and a white SUV and no one else, and it seemed like folks were upset but not hurt. I then saved the work I was doing, called up the program that deals with my home security cameras and watched an instant replay of the collision. One of the cameras had not only caught the whole impact but clearly showed what the traffic signals were showing. The grey car, going north, had run a red light and hit the front right side of the white SUV going east across the intersection.
When I have such video and it can settle a dispute, I go out and offer it. One time, the three drivers involved in a collision were arguing loudly over whose fault it was. The guy whose fault I knew it was was giving his description of what he claimed had happened. He had absolutely, positively not run the red light..and believe me. Ray Bradbury never wrote a finer work of science-fiction.
I wandered up to them and said, "Hi. I live in that house over there and my security camera captured the entire accident." Whereupon the fellow I knew was at fault instantly began telling a different version in which he had run the red light but only because a tree branch had obscured the signal. He said this even though it was plain to see there was no tree branch anywhere near any signal.
That arguing continued. Yesterday when I went out to tell the folks involved in yesterday's accident that I had video, it wasn't necessary. The gent in the grey sedan was admitting he'd run the red light and apologizing so sincerely that the lady in the white SUV — the lady he'd hit — and I felt sorry for him. She was shaken but forgiving.
And it made me happy…not happy that they'd had this auto accident but happy at the pure civility. The fellow admitted he was wrong and that doesn't seem to happen often in the world these days, even when someone is demonstrably, provably wrong. They want to keep arguing the inarguable. We need more "I was wrong" in this world.
And I seem to have been wrong to quote online sources that the record "Love Grows" by Edison Lighthouse came out in 1972. A great many of you wrote to tell me it was 1970. I stand corrected. Well actually, I'm seated at the moment but you get the idea.