The Menace On The Road Who Shares Your Genes

Monday, November 2, 2009
By Amy Alkon

The Menace On The Road Who Shares Your Genes
Moving piece in The New York Times by Michelle Huneven. An excerpt:

He did not go gentle into the carless life. He had Hertz bring him a car, but because he had no license, the agent wouldn't leave it. Then he started sending letters threatening me with legal action, disinheritance, prison. Some were short, scrawled bursts of curses and name-calling; others were closely argued legal rants.

My only complaint is that it took her way too long to take away her elderly father's car. It's lucky no one was hurt or killed, and it's clearly only chance and luck that made that the case.

I write about my 70-something hit-and-run driver in my soon-to-be-published book, I See Rude People: One woman's battle to beat some manners into impolite society. After I tracked him down and had him prosecuted (no thanks to Officer H. of the Santa Monica Police Department), I wrote to the old man's son, a USC professor, telling him my parents had made my grandfather stop driving his giant old black Cadillac around, and asking the prof to consider whether his father was fit to drive. No word on whether the old man is still on the road, but maybe I'll learn more after the book is out.

*Thanks to all of you who've been pre-ordering my book -- at one point this Friday, my book was down to 16,040 in Amazon's top-selling products ranking, and in the top 100 in books in my category (and the only book in that number that has yet to be published).

You can read an excerpt in this month's Psychology Today, the one with the chimp on the cover (and no, that's not a picture of me).

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