Sunbathing on a road? WTH?
http://news.yahoo.com/2-teen-girls-sunbathing-pa-road-struck-car-020517573.html
BEAVER, Pa. (AP) ? Police say two teenage girls who fell asleep while sunbathing on a rural Pennsylvania road have been struck by a car.
The Beaver County Police Department tells WTAE-TV (http://bit.ly/KoTXi9 ) that 13-year-olds Samantha Schermanhorn and Kaylie George were hit by the vehicle Sunday afternoon.
Two of Samantha's cousins tell the station that their 19-year-old brother had stopped at a stop sign and made a turn before striking the girls with his car.
Nicole and Nicholas Beck say the girls were conscious and told them that they had fallen asleep while suntanning. The cousins say their brother was questioned by police after the crash.
The girls were airlifted to a hospital. Officials with the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh tell the station that the girls are in fair condition Sunday night.
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Information from: WTAE-TV, http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com
Re: s/o feeling dumb. Who does this?
To be fair, in this part of the state, there is almost no flat land, and many roads are dead 99% of the time. The houses are right up against the road, on a mountainside. If a storm comes, it will make your mailbox lean into the street enough for cars to hit. There aren't sidewalks or any real shoulders to the roads in many places, and a lot of the side streets see the same couple of cars at the same time every day. We are talking about a town with something like 5,000 people, many of whom are seniors who don't drive.
Do I think this was a good idea? No. It's not the same as if somebody did this where I live, though, or in the middle of downtown Chicago. The last time I was in the Beaver/Beaver Falls area (not long ago at all), I saw somebody taking his cows across the "main road," which had one lane in each direction. His cows. It didn't seem odd to him to hold up traffic for fifteen minutes to have his cows cross, because he does it every day and "traffic" was my car and one other car. He seemed surprised to see a whopping two cars, in fact. I would liken this more to suntanning in your driveway--not a good idea, but not the same as laying down in the highway.
Well then you lie on a hill in your backyard or driveway (that is not such a bad idea because whoever is coming will see you and will be driving slowly). Or you don't do it.