Jan 08 2009
Hazard lights in the fog
I was driving home on 110 North yesterday around 3 am when I found that I suddenly couldn’t see more than 4-5 feet in front of my car due to the thick fog.
I felt a twinge of irritation as traffic slowed down to a crawl. At 3 am in the morning?! I’ve never been that great at night driving, so this fog made me pretty nervous.
You might be wondering what I was doing awake on a Wednesday night at 3 am. A film student friend and I had met to shoot, edit, and render a 4 minute clip for A. It took us over 5 hours to make a FOUR MINUTE CLIP. I could really lose myself in that type of work, though. I wonder if I’m in the right profession? Could I lose track of time like that being an attorney? I guess I could, but it depends on the work I’ll be doing. I don’t know. It took me back to my days in art class during college. I really could lose myself in the details of a drawing, for hours… days even.I really don’t think art is my calling, though. I don’t think I have the passion and the drive to make it in the art world. A person has to have more patience than I do. But doing that film stuff yesterday. That was fun. I could see myself doing that and not caring how much money I make.
Either way, I do suppose law school was more practical. and I figure I could lose myself in hours of painstaking research and contract writing if there was a deadline. In fact, I think I may have last summer. I just wish law school could be as interesting as film school seems to be.
Anyway, back to the fog. I noticed a driver in front of me had turned on his hazard lights. I looked around and watched as other drivers slowly followed suit. I turned mine on, too, just in case some speedy gonzalez behind me needed a clue as to where my slow ass was.
And there we were, slowly driving at 20 mph on a freeway at 3 am at night in an uneven group, trailing along like snails, with our hazard lights blinking in unison. I couldn’t help but wonder whether this was normal, or if I was just being a lemming.
Is it common knowledge that a person who encounters thick fog should turn on hazard lights as a safety measure?
