The Following Is A Public Safety Announcement

In keeping with my dedication to public safety, such as yesterday's idea to outlaw texting while scooter-riding, today I turn my attention to roadwalkers. Roadwalkers. Not streetwalkers. They are an entirely different danger to public health. No, I mean roadwalkers, those people who think it is their right to stroll down the pavement, cars be darned.

Signs should be posted along the roadways, banning pavement walkers. Just like NO THROUGH TRUCKS, these signs could proclaim: NO ROADWALKERS. Think of the jobs that would create! Maybe South Carolina has some stimulus money laying around that they're not going to use, what with fewer governor trips to Argentina now. That would pay people to put up the signs that a new sign factory can produce.

This roadwalking is becoming a hot issue. Just today, on my way to the doctor's office, I saw TWO roadwalkers. The first, a female, was out for a workout. She of the sports bra and earphones who can no longer afford a gym membership, apparently, because times are tough all over. No more climate-controlled treadmill for her. She's gotta hoof it like the dark ages. Except that maybe she should walk FACING traffic so she knows when a T-Hoe on a mission is bearing down on her. That 15-foot mowed grassy right-of-way might be a good place to walk when traffic is coming from both directions and meeting right at the point you are walking, necessitating the T-Hoe in your lane to come to a halt until the motorcycle in the other lane passes by. Did you not hear about the drunk walking home on New Year's Eve who was knocked in the head by a passenger-side mirror? Be glad that Mrs. Hillbilly Mom is neither drunk nor a state representative nor one to leave the scene of an accident after pocketing the evidence of your cell phone knocked loose by the collision.

Roadwalker Part Deux was a male in a straw hat and no shirt (we are truly midwestern fashion plates here in Hillmomba) who at least had the good sense to walk facing traffic. But he still lacked enough sense to step off the pavement on the hilly winding narrow blacktop county road where he had three cars backed up until Mrs. HM passed in the opposite direction so they could give him a wide berth. If only you had been on my side of the road, my #1 son was prepared to shove your shoulder and shout, "Step off, Dude!"

People. If there is no sidewalk, then perhaps you are not meant to be walking along that road. I know the price of gas is high. I know that you can no longer ride your scooter and text, due to the law I passed yesterday. But walk yourself to the library and read this blog and realize that you are part of the problem. You are not a precious little tow-headed two-year-old that people want to indulge and protect. They will crack your noggin like a rotten jack-o-lantern and not give two hoots about it. Roads are for cars. Sidewalks are for people.

Don't even get me started on the bicycle riders on the sidewalks.