I’m not talking about the ones in Cambodia. This particular killing field is a lot closer to home. In a small town not really known for death and destruction, but maybe it should be.

Or at least one particular section of highway should be.

Edwardsville, Kansas… at Interstate 435 and Kansas Highway 32 to be exact.

I drive on I435 past the ramps for K32 a lot. So does Mrs. Old Fart. I’ve never really thought it to be a particularly treacherous stretch of road, but how else can the following be explained.

Between the I435 bridge over the Kansas River, north to Kansas Avenue, there have been at least 5 major accidents in the last 6 months. At least 3 of them involved fatalities. If you go back one year, you can include another fatality from the tractor trailer that went over the bridge at Metropolitan Ave.

The latest accident, last night, killed two (a husband and wife), and sent their two children to the hospital. I was diverted off the interstate last night on my way home from work, and reading the story today has been surreal. How does a vehicle cross the grass median and go into oncoming traffic? It’s a rhetorical question. I know the driver can fall asleep, suffer a sever medical problem, etc… but what I am asking is… why isn’t there a guard rail separating the northbound lanes from the southbound lanes? Something as simple as that would have prevented last nights accident. I’m not sure it would have saved lives because who knows whether the husband would have regained control of the vehicle. But it would have stopped the vehicle from crashing almost head on into a Fed-Ex truck.

Government believes they need to protect us from second hand smoke… but not crossover traffic accidents at 70 mph.

You are far more likely to be killed at I435 & K32 than you are inhaling the smoke in the Red Balloon.

So, stay away from the killing field if you can. The fewer of you folks driving there, the safer I’ll be.