About six inches. That’s how close the car came to hitting a boy at the intersection of Northern Parkway and Wabash Avenue.
Gregory Kane
I was on my way to, well, wherever the heck it was I was on my way to. I was stopped at the red light at Wabash Avenue and Northern Parkway, in the far left lane so I could make a left turn on to Northern Parkway.
There were three kids with buckets going from car to car soliciting donations. What were the donations for?
I have no idea. But everybody and his mama, at least in these parts, seems to think that soliciting donations at traffic lights’97 at some of the busiest intersections in the city and county’97 is an effective, viable fund-raising technique.
Actually, the practice is annoying and, at times, can get downright dangerous.
Two of the youngsters, a girl about 11 or 12 and a boy about 8 or 9, approached my car for a donation. I explained to them that I carried no cash.
I could have added that even if I had cash, I probably wouldn’t have given it to them. I get in my car to drive from point A to point B, not to dole out cash when I’m stopped at traffic lights.
Another boy, about 10 or 11, followed the first boy and the girl. He stepped in front of my car and walked into traffic on Wabash. That’s when a car coming in the lane to my immediate right missed him by about six inches.
Had the boy tried to cross Wabash only a split second earlier, you might have been reading or watching news reports of the tragic, possibly fatal accident that occurred in the city.
And it could have been avoided. All Mayor Vroom Vroom has to do is urge the city council to pass a law to make soliciting funds at busy intersections illegal.
Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz can urge the Baltimore County Council to do the same.
There are better’97 and safer’97 ways to raise funds for whatever the pet cause du jour is for this group or that one. And people need to be urged to use them.
There’92s one guy that regularly camps out in front of the M&T Bank in the 5400 block of Baltimore National Pike. One day he tried to solicit some money from me for a project his son was involved in, but, as usual, I had no cash. But the next day he was in front of the Giant supermarket on Old Court Road. I figured it must have been kismet. I made it a point to get some cash to give to the guy.
Persistence pays off. Soliciting cash from motorists stopped at red lights isn’92t persistence, it’s stupidity!
When Mayor Vroom Vroom asks the City Council to pass that law banning soliciting cash from busy intersections, she can revisit that issue of what to do about dirt bike riders. Why?
About two feet. That’s how close the idiot riding a dirt bike, the wrong way on a one-way street, came to my car as I was driving home last week.
Current city policy is that Baltimore police will not chase dirt-bike riding morons. It’92s a safety issue, we’92re told.
How safe is it for one of these cretins to come speeding toward my car doing a wheelie? THAT’S safe?
It most certainly is not safe. Dirt bike riders, almost by definition, are a menace to themselves and law-abiding motorists. Something needs to be done to stop them.
These idiots speed around doing their wheelies and almost daring someone to kill them. What will be the reaction of Mayor Vroom Vroom and the police department when some motorist obliges one of them?