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Fiction. © Copyright 1997, Jim Loy
When I read that newspaper headline, "Woman Driver Killed In Accident," it made me wonder. Why would someone compose such a headline? "Woman driver" is normally an expression of ridicule or crude humor. It describes something like a cartoon character, a typically scatter-brained woman, who can't even control her car. And yet, we have this kind of humor, side by side with tragedy. Did this woman die because she was a typical woman driver? Or was the expression "woman driver" used accidentally? Was she merely a woman who was driving a car? Or maybe she was a notoriously bad driver, who died some other way, bungee jumping perhaps.
The newspaper article was fairly short. But it did clear up some of these mysteries. The accident occurred in Marble City. It seems that the woman, a Ms. Marjory Waters, failed to yield the right-of-way to another car, causing a collision. Ms. Waters was killed. The two people in the other car were taken to the hospital, and were released with no serious injuries. A Sheriff Andrews commented on the accident, by saying that "The Waters woman was a typical woman driver."
I suspected that Sheriff Andrews did not actually deduce, from the evidence, that Ms. Waters had caused the accident as the result of being a woman. I suspected that Sheriff Andrews was just showing his male chauvinism.
I decided to satisfy my curiosity. I drove to Marble City, about a half-hour drive from here. And, I talked to some of the people there.
The accident happened at the corner of 4th and Lincoln. Ms. Waters was South-bound on Lincoln. She stopped at the stop sign. Then she drove into the path of the other car, which was driven by Bill Eck. Mr. Eck's wife was in the passenger seat. Both cars were totaled. Sheriff Andrews told me that "The Waters woman didn't even look to see if any cars were coming." He seemed sure that no man would be that stupid. It turned out that Sheriff Andrews didn't really know whether Ms. Waters had looked for on-coming cars or not. But since she went into the intersection, he figured that she hadn't looked. That seemed reasonable to me.
Well, it looked like I wasn't going to clear Ms. Waters of being a stupid driver. And I wasn't going to clear all women of the same crime. Before driving back home, I decided to visit the scene of the accident.
As I approached the intersection, I came to a stop at the stop sign. It turned out to be a 3-way stop. I looked both ways and then started to go. I slammed on my brakes, as a car zoomed through the intersection. The driver honked his horn, and gave me the finger. But he didn't slow down.
My heart was pounding. I felt sick. That maniac must have run a stop sign. But no, there was no stop sign facing that way. There were three stop signs for the other three ways. This was a 3-way stop, in which cars could come from all four directions. Three of the ways had stop signs. And the fourth way had the right-of-way.
And I knew who was to blame for the accident, whoever designed an oddball 3-way stop. It was a trap waiting to spring on anyone who thought they knew what a normal 3-way stop was. I almost fell into the trap myself. A headline flashed into my mind, "Male Driver Killed In Accident."
Epilog: I sent this to the paper, as a letter to the Editor. It got some angry replies, to the effect that I was blaming the city for Ms. Waters' stupidity.
Author's comment: The above story is fiction, including the epilog. But it is based on an intersection that was once here, in Bozeman. The intersection hasn't gone away. It's just no longer a 3-way stop.