You see it each day: You’re driving in a parking lot, in the same direction as other cars are parked and pointed, given the lanes and lines, and another driver enters from the other end going the wrong way.

Unless they’re piloting a unicycle, they can’t pull into a parking space, because they’re pointed in entirely the wrong direction. But they can keep everyone else from proceeding, at least until they back up and get out of the way.

Now really, how hard is it to travel in the right direction? Down is down, and up is up, right? And similarly, the wrong way is the wrong way. Yet people do it so often that you wonder how they avoid traffic fatalities.

Actually, they don’t. Just over the holiday weekend, a wrong way driver who was also speeding slammed into an oncoming Jeep in West Harris County. The wrong-way driver died at the scene. The man who was driving in the right direction suffered serious injuries.

Similarly, a New York pastor who’s also a gospel singer was injured and his wife was killed when a wrong way driver hit his vehicle. Pastor Timothy Wright is in critical condition in a hospital; his teen-age grandson also was injured. Wright’s wife, Betty, died.

We’re not talking rocket science. We’re talking about the absolute imperative to proceed only when you’re headed in the correct direction.

In some buildings, there’s an “in” door and an “out” door. On every road, there’s a correct direction and a wrong way. Such things do not require a vast IQ to perceive and heed, so we all should just do it. No excuses.

Besides, unless drivers are impaired by alcohol or other drugs, it shouldn’t be difficult to steer the correct way. And it’s certainly worth the effort, as the continued slaughter on America’s roads indicates. Going the wrong way? That’s the wrong way in more ways than one.

If you or a loved one has suffered because of a wrong-way driver or any other negligence on the road, the Texas personal injury lawyers at Jim S. Adler & Associates can help turn things in the right direction.

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