Driving

So. I remember when I was learning how to drive how my Dad would always say "there's no excuse for hitting a parked car". I can understand the logic. It's a stationary target. You are in control (presumably) of the car you are driving and can certainly avoid hitting it, whereas it has no way of avoiding YOU. When I hit the only parked car I've ever hit, I remember two things. 1) How did I hit a parked ORANGE car??!! and 2) Don't tell Dad. hahahaha

So when I heard the other day about the Cosco Busan, the freighter that hit the Bay Bridge, I was somewhat confused. If hitting a parked car is driving sin #1, what is hitting a BRIDGE worth? The Bay Bridge is 71 years old. Older by 6 months than its far more famous sister, the Golden Gate. How do you hit a BRIDGE? Excuses have been flying, like you'd expect. Fog, bad radar, bad pilot, bad captain, no speakee English. But the bottom line is pretty simple. You hit , I'll say it again, a BRIDGE!

In addition to the whole hitting the bridge thing (a BRIDGE!!) the collision has caused one of the worst ecological events in the Bay's history. What is certain to be a lingering question is, "how does this get fixed...and WHO gets to fix it?" Will the shipping company be held liable? Will the captain...the pilot...? Who will be responsible for the countless fish, birds, and all the other animals in the Bay who are affected? Who knows. Those answers will probably not be known for years. Who pays all the fishermen who are out of work now that they have nothing edible to fish? The crabbers who have no crabs to catch?

Good grief. Or, as someone I know would say in what is an attempt to bring this utterly underused phrase back to its rightful place of prominence, "HOLY MOLY".