Truck Watching on the Long Island Expressway

Once or twice a week, I have to trek from Nassau to Suffolk County, NY to the Landlord Tenant parts in the municipality's District Courts. I particularly love to go to the 6th District courthouse in Patchogue.

Sometimes the calendar nears one-hundred in count and my cases aren't up for another half hour or so. I always observe someone difficult trying to manipulate the justice system in creative ways by stalling their case with crappy excuses to secure an adjournment - one week someone was too sick to attend court and the next that same woman was "on vacation." She lost her place by default.

But an assignment to 6th District means lunch at a phenomenal pizza place in Holbrook. Mamma Lombardi's makes the freshest Margherita slices - gigantic plum tomatoes and fresh mozzarella that nearly rivals what I remember having in a small village in Italy. That's saying a lot because the fresh mozzarella and tomatoes in that country are organic even at gas station road stops as you leave Rome. They opened up another restaurant in Port Jefferson which 6th District covers in eviction matters. I pick up two slices on the way back to my office in Eastern Nassau and eat one, saving the other for my lunch the following day or dinner that night. It's definitely worth the trek.

On my way back to the office, I usually am taking bites of my Margherita slice and keeping an eye on the Mack trucks in plain view. Trucks and trying to pass them. That's what I hate about 495. (For you non-New Yorkers, that's the Long Island Expressway or LIE for short.)

One day on the drive back, I saw this truck without cargo in front of me. Usually, these huge trucks have signs on their bumpers that read, "Do not pass on the right" and "If you don't see my mirrors, I don't see you." I've always been nervous about gigantic Mack trucks ever since I was a little kid. As a toddler, I told Daddy I didn't like the loud sound of the engine. And yes, I was intimidated by their size, too.

I was also almost hit by a school bus in the school parking lot on the way to my own bus. A little boy walking next to me said, "They shouldn't drive here while children are walking. They could be killed." Have they so quickly forgotten that your children's safety is their business?

They put these warning signs to escape civil liability should someone be seriously injured. Slippery when wet. Dead end. Caution, wet floor. Do not lean on door. In law school, we read cases about people and entities facing lawsuits for a "failure to warn." When I was studying for the bar and viewing some tapes, the lecturer warned, "They don't do it because they like you. They are protecting themselves." So if I am on a scooter and I barrel into a dead end zone they can come back on me and say, "We told you so, stupid!"

But this time a sign on the back of a Mack read, "Please do not hit me." I was hysterically laughing.  This sign would encourage some lunatic with nothing to lose and a penchant for criminal mischief.  When I was 6 and attending camp, a bus driver deliberately hit the back of our bus to mess with our driver. Stupid college kids!

Anyone with half a brain knows not to hit the metal bumper on the back of a truck. You'll have to pay for damage for rear ending anyone. And I think a car would sustain more damage from such a collision than the truck. Duh. Do they really have to post a sign to remind someone it isn't wise to hit the back of a vehicle?

"Please do not hit me." That's something you hear from a little kid whose mother caught him with his hand in the cookie jar. He's begging for mercy. And the more you beg, the more a sadist will inflict harm. Some wiseass who just got released from a holding cell at the Suffolk police headquarters in Yaphank will want to play bumper cars on the LIE and speed away. They don't care about their car being smashed in by a Mack. They already drive a piece of shit.

I'm heading to 5th District Court in Ronkonkoma this morning. In the spirit of the Yankees 7-3 win last night over Philly, I don't expect too much traffic. People will be staying in to celebrate like they did in 1998.