Not Responsible

Aggregate companies are joining the new American habit of dodging responsibility for their actions. Most of the dump trucks that I see in my local area, which is target-rich from the point of view of dump trucks, sport little stickers that read "Not Responsible For Broken Windshields."

And those stickers strike me as being a lot like big red-painted middle fingers, because the bastards keep breaking my windshield. Repeatedly. Often. I cringe when dump trucks pass me going the other way, I genuinely do, especially on Highway 74 or 203rd Avenue, because I just know I'm going to get a barrage of gravel and rocks. And the dump truck will roar into the distance flying its little flag of defiance, its little "Not Responsible" sign, and leave me with another long crack or impact star in my fricking windshield. I don't even bother having the damn thing fixed any more. What's the point? In a week a speeding transfer truck is just going to break it anyway; I'll save myself the emotional roller coaster.

My windshield wasn't broken when I bought my car. I didn't take a hammer to it and break it. It was broken by rocks flying off or kicked up by dump trucks. How are they not responsible for that? Oh, I'm sure in the legal sense they aren't responsible; the lobbyists always find ways to craft legislation that permits big business to skip out on its responsibilities. But how can they not be responsible in a scientific sense? Truck throws up rock. Rock hits my windshield. Windshield breaks. "Not Responsible" sticker proved to be false. They may not be liable, but they're still responsible.

It makes me so mad. I want to do something, but all I can do is helplessly roar STOP BREAKING MY #$&*@ WINDSHIELD as the dump truck vanishes into the heat shimmer.

I don't tailgate dump trucks. I don't tailgate in general. I've never been hit by a rock while following a dump truck (curiously, I think I take fewer rock strikes when I follow a dump truck; I think the leading truck sweeps out the airspace for me). Only when the dump truck is going the other way, which by my math means that rocks raised by the dump truck could be hitting my windshield at a combined speed of about 140 miles per hour out on the open highway. Even on days when I'd like to drive with the windows down, I don't, because I've taken rock strikes on the side windows and can't begin to imagine what a rock strike in the middle of my forehead would feel like (though I don't doubt that the dump truck operators would lose no time putting "Not Responsible For Head Wounds" stickers on their trucks).

I hope, I really hope, that every now and then a dump truck loses a headlight to a rock thrown up by my car. But I know they don't.

I think I'm going to make a sticker that reads "Not Responsible For Sudden Gouts of Hellish Flame" and leave them to wonder what I'm up to.