A ranking without honor

Regarding the Sept. 3 story, “Drivers score poorly again,” is there anyone who finds this news item surprising? Who would have guessed? You could have fooled me?

Our finest hour? Couldn’t be more proud.

Make no mistake about it — No. 3 in the nation. Except this is no honor. Well, at least we did better than Baltimore or Washington D.C. The ratings are out and according to a report by Allstate, the city of Glendale ranks third in the country for bad drivers. Can it get any worse?

There is no doubt that Washington D.C. will probably forever hold the first position. It always has. It probably won’t take much doing for the drivers of Glendale to cruise by Baltimore and own the No. 2 spot. With a few more accidents or pedestrian mishaps, we could achieve No. 2 by the end of the year.

I wonder if anyone is celebrating this new statistic — possibly the auto body shops or personal injury attorneys? Nothing beats turning on the evening news and hearing how miserable we drive in Glendale. It was almost the lead item.

No, this is not good news. It’s pathetic. To add icing to the cake, there was a story in the Sept. 8 edition of the Glendale News-Press describing how a Glendale Police motorcycle officer, on the way to a crash in which a bicyclist was struck, was involved in an accident allegedly caused by an 18-year-old motorist making a turn in front of the officer.

Do we really need this kind of shame and humiliating publicity?

Richard Ciasca

Glendale