The Walk Behind Car Parking Worry

Yeah, I know, that title is a mouthful.   If I wasn't tired right now I would spend at least two minutes trying to come up with something a little more direct, a little more clear, or maybe I'd come up with something vague that makes you say, "what's that all about?  I'd better read on and find out."   But I'm tired so all you get tonight is the reminder phrase I stuck in my blog post list yesterday.

I walk behind cars all the time.   We all do.  Most of the time when you're walking behind a car it's because you're traipsing through a parking lot, heading into a store or building or you're coming out of said location, heading back to your vehicle.

Each of us has walked behind countless parked cars in our lives, not being overly concerned about it. Think about children and what we tell them; we don't say, "don't walk behind those parked cars," what we say is, "don't walk across the street without looking both ways for moving cars."   As far as my young children go, they're not even allowed to walk across a road without holding hands.   But...when we get into the parking lot the rules are a little less strict.   They can walk beside us, as long as they're staying close and not dashing out into the parking lanes.

Just yesterday I was walking behind a parked car and I noticed someone in the car.   Not to worry, I walked right past the rear bumper because the car wasn't on.   The car wasn't going anywhere, so no danger.  I stayed closer to the car because there were cars moving through the lane itself.    Right as I got towards the latter half of the car I heard the engine turn on and I stepped quickly out of the way.

Then I got to thinking.   What if all these cars in these parking lots were electric cars?  What if they all moved out of their parking spaces silently like our electric car does?   How do we know when we're safe?  We don't have the warning sounds of an internal combustion engine running to let us know we'd better proceed with caution.

How will things have changed in ten, twenty, thirty years when electric cars are more and more prevalent as we walk through a parking lot?

The Big Boy Update:  My son told me the other morning, "I see some firewood on your butt."  I was afraid to ask him what he meant.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter asked Uncle Jonathan what was on his shirt.   He said, "Cacodemon" (one of the enemies in the video game Doom and a pretty scary albeit low-resolution demon).   "Oh," she said and immediately went back to eating her dinner.