"You want them to what?"

Every good copywriter I know, and I know a lot of good ones, has at one time or another been on the receiving end of the comments I got a couple days ago.

It's not the first time I've heard them. And, sad but true, it won't be the last. It never ceases to amaze me that someone can actually have such a lack of situational awareness that they say them out loud in front of other people.

The comments usually come from an account person, more often than not a junior one (although in my case it was a senior person. The definition of "senior" can range anywhere from surviving the last round of lay-offs to going to the same college as the client's wife).

I presented an ad with a headline I liked a lot. Clever. Unexpected. Something different for the brand, yet still in character.

First, with a straight face, the account person said, "I don't get it."

I'll wait while every copywriter reading this nods their head in recognition.

Fortunately for account people, when a headline's cleared for takeoff over their head, and they don't like the glare of the spotlight for being the only one in the room who doesn't get it, they have a go-to follow up comment they can always take refuge in.

"People might have to think about it for a minute."

Well, we wouldn't want that would we? Thinking bad.

Since this particular shop is an account driven agency, can you guess how the story ends? Of course you can. Since the account person "didn't get it", she generously offered up a suggestion as to how it might read.

Let's just say it wasn't exactly a "why-didn't-I-think-of-that" moment for me.

So she got her way. Thanks to her suggestion, the headline got dumbed down. Way down. But at least she can take comfort in the fact that now there's absolutely no risk of anyone having to think about it.

In fact, there's no risk of anyone reading it.

I'm walkin' here

Recognize the somewhat unpleasant looking gentleman in glasses? I think we can all agree from the look on his face that he's not happy about something.

That something is probably the damage the bodies of the 10 people he killed and 70 he injured did to his 1992 red Buick La Sabre as he was plowing through them at Santa Monica Farmer's Market on July 16, 2003.

His name is George Russell Weller, and he was 86 years old at the time of the accident.

The reason he comes to mind is because I heard about another senior involved accident yesterday. It seems a 79-year old woman hit a 74-year old pedestrian in Tustin.

But wait, there's more.

Any underachieving senior citizen can mow down someone. But not realizing she hit anything or any one, she took it the extra step by dragging the woman under her car for almost a mile until onlookers stopped her and pointed out the body under her car.

Years ago there was a 60 Minutes piece about senior drivers. In it, a 92-year old man in Florida had run into eight people waiting for a bus, killing five of them including two children. He didn't even remember the accident.

Just Googling "senior involved car accidents" for this post turned up thousands of articles.

I'm tired of arguments from organizations like AARP about seniors needing to drive to hang on to their independence. Really? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that innocent lives trump their independence.

The two highest accident/death prone age groups when it comes to driving are 16-25 and 60 - whatever. As unpopular as it may be, there should be mandatory annual driving tests for everyone in those age groups. The idea that licenses get renewed for four years at a time by mail when someone is in their 80's is a joke. How many people that age do you know with 20/20 vision, excellent hearing and cat-like reflexes? That's what I thought.

In case anyone forgot - and memory is one of the first things to go as you get older - driving in California is a privilege not a right.

Sorry this wasn't the usual humorous post with the snappy end line.

But there's nothing funny about people getting killed by senior drivers who can't remember hitting anybody.