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Speeding drivers only care about themselves
Opinion

Reckless driving and speeding are not problems exclusive to Ceres. It happens everywhere where inconsiderate people get behind the wheel.

I guess I’m biased as a mature driver when I say I don’t see the road terrorists as being people over 45. The problem drivers seem to be younger drivers who think the world resolves around them and their needs.

Just prior to sitting down to write this I was exiting the freeway at normal speed when this speed demon in a loud Honda swooped in from the middle lane and ran over the line to beat it in front of me. When we got to the red light I could see he had a smirk; apparently he thought it was funny and was laughing about it to his front seat passenger.

The speeding seems to be a hallmark of an inconsiderate, entitled generation. Only they matter. So if they feel the urge to speed down Canyon Drive and piss off David King, so be it. They are not bothered by their dangerous practices; but they’re deceiving themselves because the court are full of young people who screwed up the rest of their lives because they were reckless or speeding and killed somebody.

As one who listens in on virtually every Ceres City Council meeting I can tell you a lot of folks have been begging for the city to “do something.”

What is that “something” that can stop people with free wills from driving like hell? Getting hit in the pocketbook has been effective. Sure, more police could give out more speeding tickets but if you could hire a cop to sit on every corner in town, you’d still find that one smart aleck who knows the unwatched stretch.

In some respects the problem is speeding is very similar to the illegal fireworks problem. You have people who only care about their own entertainment and think everyone else should put up with the explosions that make veterans, pets and old people jump out of their skin. And yes, it’s time we labeled those people as inconsiderate and entitled as the driver who rips up the streets.

Every year an attempt is made to stop illegal fireworks and every year it gets worse. People scoff at the law and violate it anyway.

People want government to solve the problem when the problem is with the people who can’t regulate or discipline their own behavior within a free society.


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What grieves me as an American who grew up accepting all folks of all colors is how folks want to break off into their own constituencies. We see it from time to time when some Hispanics come to city council meetings and suggest that because there are no Hispanics sitting on the council that they have no representation. To me that is highly racist to say because if you’re Latino and cannot go to your council person who may be black, white, Filipino, Asian or Native American that you don’t have representation because your skin color doesn’t match up.

I’m not too sure I liked how graduation season last month led to some groups in other counties honoring only their black graduates.

Then last week I was emailed a complimentary copy of the California Advocate, billed as “Fresno’s African American Community Newspaper.” The headline beneath its masthead read: “Black Graduate Photos for CSUF – Fresno Unified – FCC – Clovis Unified – Central Unified – Wash. Union.”   

The only elected school board members with messages are black.

There is an ad for “Miss Black Fresno and Miss Black Teen Fresno.”

After praising students for their success and reminding them that they have an “infinite future,” Marlon R. Hall, the black interim president of Fresno City College, included this sentence: “After experiencing the devastating impact these past years of the pandemic, injustice, economic uncertainty, violence on our most at-risk communities, and it continues to open the eyes that our life in America is stacked against people of African American heritage.”

Life in America is so “stacked against” blacks that we had a black president, black Supreme Court justices, black elected officials, black generals, etc.

Ad after ad, message after message congratulates the black graduates. Only the black graduates are listed.

Even the ads for churches are obviously all black churches. 

It’s ironic to me that for a people who seek inclusion and fought against segregation in the 1950s are engaging in a true form of segregation and exclusion.


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I think some of these people are Left repeat their worn-out claims of racism and white supremacy they repeat it in instances where it makes them look downright foolish.

Take Rep. Jamaal Bowman for example. When Elon Musk tweeted that he voted for Mayra Flores, a Latino Republican woman, Bowman called him “just another Republican billionaire who supports white supremacy.”

Flores, who won Texas’ 34th Congressional District in a special election last week, turned the seat Republican for the first time in decades.


This column is the opinion of Jeff Benziger, and does not necessarily represent the opinion of The Ceres Courier or 209 Multimedia Corporation. How do you feel about this? Let Jeff know at jeffb@cerescourier.com