So so sad

It is supremely tragic what happened at West Portal this past Saturday. A Mercedes-Benz SUV plowed into a family of four waiting at a bus shelter. The mom, dad, and one-year old son is dead. The youngest three-month-old baby is still in critical condition as of this writing. The driver of the Benz - a 78-year old woman - remains in custody.

A sad situation all round. An infant - god bless that he survives - is without his family. The 78-year old woman will have to live with the steep consequences for the rest of her life. She will be utterly shunned by the community if it turns out she was speeding/road-raging deliberately. Destroying lives over ego; that warrants a one-way trip to the gulags, in my opinion.

This episode is a reminder for my friends who are with new babies: get your life insurance and will in order. I know it is icky and unsettling to discuss death, especially when biologically it is still so far away (god willing). But for the sake of the children, how they get taken care of in the event of an unfortunate accident is to be prepared for now. All it takes is a rogue driver in a speeding SUV (allegedly) to upend your entire reality.

Because your death may not garner any sympathy points from the public to have a GoFundMe for your orphaned baby.

If you’re in the old lady driving a Mercedes-Benz demographic, your insurance rates are going up! That 78-year old woman did so much damage to limb and property that I don’t think even a five million umbrella policy will cover it all. I sure hope the two adult victims have a life insurance policy for the orphaned infant. Because I bet there’s not nearly enough juice to be squeezed out of the Benz driver’s insurance.

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Bavarian teal.

A bridge collapse in Genoa

Photo: Reuters. 

What a horrifying image. 

A bridge deck collapsing while I'm driving on it is just about my worst nightmare (thank you, fear of heights). Every time I travel across the Bay Bridge or the Golden Gate Bridge, images of the road-deck utterly falling into the water would always momentarily flash across my mind. This is partly why I never leave the house on weekends.

The above horror is the scene in Genoa, Italy, where a heavy storm caused one of the bridge towers to collapse. It's weird seeing actual buildings underneath the bridge, and in the picture towards the rear those sure look like apartment buildings. I understand land is immensely dearer in Europe than America so it's probably out of necessity, but it's still crazy. 

You cannot pay me enough to live in a house built underneath a bridge. I don't care how unlikely bridge failures are: I'd never get a good night's sleep in those conditions. This particular bridge got knocked over from a mere wind storm! You'd think it'd be engineered to withstand way worse than that: Italy is an earthquake-prone country after all. 

And what of the situation here in America? Many experts agree our infrastructure is crumbling and in dire need of repair, but both parties of congress have continually kicked the can on properly funding such needed endeavor. I hate to say it but it's going to take a catastrophe similar to this one in Genoa (dozens of people dead) in order to get any action from the federal government. 

I just hope I'm not on that bridge.