DISABILITY...

A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH?

By Heidi Johnson-Wright

Step right up, kids. I’ve got something I gotta tell you, and that something it this: drive stupid and you’ll face the worst possible fate you could ever imagine.

What do I mean by “drive stupid?” I mean taking your eyes off the road, especially for stupid reasons. Like to replay that Demi Lovato tune. Or to re-adjust those flesh tunnels in your blown-out earlobes. Or to send a text from your Hushed app to that unwitting recipient who thinks you’re a chick from Barcelona when you’re really a dude from Barstow.

You see, distracted driving can have some mighty brutal results. Like wrapping your dad’s Kia Sorrento around a tree. Think how mad he’s gonna be when it’s totaled ‘cause your leg is now attached to the carburetor. 

 

I know what you’re thinking. You’ve seen the “scare ‘em” movies in Driver’s Ed of real-life crashes. You think I’m trying to frighten you with the specter of death.  Au contraire, amigo mio. I am trying to make you piss your pants at the thought of something much worse than death: being disabled.

Being disabled is way worse than death. At least a corpse is still a full-fledged person. But a wheelchair user? Truth be told, going from “cool to crippled” would drop your value to about six-tenths of a human being. That’s why we’ve placed a non-disabled kid in a vintage wheelchair, told him to hang his head in shame, and put his photo on the above poster.

Being disabled is absolutely the worst thing we could think of. The worst combination of fear and shame imaginable.

Worse than running over a toddler. Worse than doing time for vehicular manslaughter. Worse than being dogged by a felony record. Hell, worse than death itself.

So the next time you text while driving because you figure ending up in a coffin doesn’t sound so bad, remember: you could end up in a wheelchair instead.

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