I have a request: May we please take a moment and give thanks for the fact that CNN, as a general habit, does not tend to pay too much attention to the goings-on in our little neck of the woods?

If they did, and if they were looking for a good headline last week, they might have had a field day with this one: Police officer hits school bus in Powhatan.

Yes, that’s right. That’s how bad we have become. The cops are crashing into the school buses.

I bring this up only in jest – the incident was very minor and probably just a freak miscalculation on the officer’s part – but I’m not sure how much it does for our growing reputation as a county in which the common sense rules of the road have ceased to exist.

I once interviewed a county police officer who had served in both Powhatan and Chesterfield. When it came to dangerous driving, he said, Powhatan took the prize hands down.

Judging by the response to a recent article published in the Powhatan Today about the speed limit changes near the Watkins Center construction project, it is obvious that traffic is a hot button issue in this county.

Just for kicks, walk into a room and ask for an opinion on the current Comp Plan review and see how many passionate responses you get. Now try the same thing about driving in Powhatan.

It doesn’t take long to realize that things have gotten pretty hairy on the roads around here. What is a bit more difficult, perhaps, is figuring out if you yourself are part of the problem.

For starters, just sit back and attempt to answer the following questions:

Do you check before you pull out into traffic, making sure that there are no tractor trailers or other vehicles coming full-speed down the road towards you?

Do you try to remember that the left lane is the passing lane, not the right lane, and not the shoulder?

When you drive down 60, do you avoid having it appear as if the car ahead of you is actually towing you?

If you have answered yes to any of these questions, please stop or (at least yield) and consider for a moment what you are doing. Ignoring safe driving laws is not just an annoyance to others; it is potentially deadly.

I am not making an attempt to say that I am the world’s most perfect driver, because I have long ago lost the right to claim that. In fact, were I to get on my high horse about this, I assure you there is a fair chance the horse would be pulled over and ticketed before I could make any significant headway.

I would just hope that, as the county continues to grow and the traffic dangers continue to mount, we all make an effort to embrace common sense instead of our maniacal need to be ahead of the pack, or to be the fastest car on the road or to get where we are going right now, right this minute, regardless of how it might affect those around us.

Just a thought, you know, for the road.