Tragedy prompts recall of 'Mr. Irwin'

A short while ago, there was an accident involving a motorcycle and a car, reported on the air and in the newspapers. The car was waiting to turn left at an intersection, and the motorcycle was coming from the opposite direction. A second car rear-ended the first car waiting to turn left and pushed it into the path of the motorcycle, killing the rider.

The sad part of this is that the collision of the motorcycle and the car could have been avoided had the car waiting to turn not had its wheels turned to the left in the direction of its turn. If that car's wheels had been still aimed straight ahead, when it was rear-ended, it would have gone straight ahead into the intersection and probably not hit anything.

This is one of the "rules of the road" imparted in drivers' education training in a small town in Ohio by "Mr. Irwin" in the 1950s. Many times when we see obvious errors in driving behavior, we say, "Too bad they did not have Mr. Irwin as their driving instructor."

He taught us that common-sense rule, and others such as: "Do not pass at an intersection," "Do not pass on railroad tracks," "Do not enter a train crossing unless you are positive that there is plenty of room for your car on the other side," "If someone insists upon taking your right-of-way, let him have it," "Bridges freeze before roads."

We took a whole semester of drivers' ed for an hour every day, and so there was plenty of time to learn some very obvious common-sense rules of driving.

Bonnie Anderson

Roselle,