Hunley: Road rage running rampant

Is it still safe to drive around here?

Usually, it’s traffic volume that’s the problem: too many cars, not enough road.

A handful of crashes were all the road rage over the past week, though.

If you missed them, here’s a backseat-driver-style recap:

On May 8, a mother in Woodbridge was charged with running over her 12-year-old daughter.

Then, a week ago, a 41-year-old Nokesville man was hit by a 2007 Suzuki Forenza he was trying to repossess in Dale City.

Apparently, the Suzuki Forenza is a heck of a car ... because the owner really didn’t want to give it up.

When the repo man told her to remove her possessions from the vehicle, police said, she got behind the wheel, rolled into him and drove away.

And if those two incidents weren’t enough, a Manassas-area woman drove into her next-door neighbor’s house on Community Drive.

Ordinarily, this would seem the height of ridiculousness. But Rosa Milagro Lizama had an excuse with which I can relate: She was distracted by her 2-year-old daughter.

I haven’t actually driven into anything with my 2-year-old son in the car.

But I certainly have performed limbo-like maneuvers in the moving automobile to reach items Jackson has cast aside.

For example:

Toddler enters car with apple juice-filled sippy cup. Then toddler decides he no longer requires sippy cup, so he flings it into the back floorboard.

But then, only seconds later, toddler reconsiders his options and commences hollering something to the effect of “Want juicy!”

Heeding the cry of the young, father then — while, of course, still driving — reaches toward the backseat, feeling around the floormat for the wayward drinking apparatus.

People under the influence of drugs have certainly piloted foreign-made sedans with better precision.

So Ms. Lizama has my sympathy. Although it seems she doesn’t really even need it.

She has perhaps the best neighbor of all time. I thought my next-door neighbor deserved an award simply for once offering me homemade crab cakes.

But Lizama’s neighbor, Amanda Murillo — you know, the one whose home was RUN INTO — had this to say:

“This sort of thing just happens sometimes, and you can’t help it. We have to be thankful that everyone’s OK.”

Maybe state Sen. R. Creigh Deeds needs to hire her for political public relations work. He also had a bit of an auto snafu last week, according to The Associated Press.

On May 9, Deeds rear-ended a car in Louisa County on his drive home from a weekend political event.

He was on Va. 22, between Mineral and Louisa, when he hit a car with two passengers.

They weren’t seriously injured, and Deeds has agreed to pay a $30 fine for following too close.

But it ain’t much of a stretch to say that’s not really the kind of publicity you want when, like Deeds, you’re running for the Democratic nomination for governor.

Yep, the senator from Bath County should have immediately called Amanda Murillo.

She could have been on newscasts all over the state, spinning the story.

“This sort of thing just happens sometimes,” she could have said.

“Even when you’re running for governor.”

Jonathan Hunley is a staff writer at the News & Messenger. Contact him at 703-369-5738 or at jhunley@insidenova.com.