The Warning Sign

[349 words] Argentinean race driver Juan Manuel Fangio was only a lap through the 1950 Monaco Grand Prix. As he approached a dangerous bend for the second time, Fangio noticed that something was wrong. The faces of the spectators, which he usually saw as a whitish blur as he drove by, were all turned and looking at something ahead of him. “If they are not looking at me,” Fangio thought, “they must be looking at something more interesting around the corner.” So he braked hard and carefully as he rounded the bend. There he saw that his split-second assessment had been accurate. Ahead of him was a massive pileup that he would have smashed into had he not heeded the warning signs. Sometimes warnings are subtle and take a trained eye to see, as in Fangio’s case. Other times the warnings are so blatantly stated that it’s hard to miss….