It’s fascinating to me that just about any time I ask you, the audience, what’s bugging you (many of my poll questions are variations on this theme, which you have no doubt noticed), a lot of the responses have to do with driving.
It seems like most people have exacting standards when it comes to driving ability. Unfortunately it also seems that most people apply those rigid standards only to others, and not to themselves.
Not you, of course. I’m talking about other people.
But I’ve seen drivers complain about being tailgated while tailgating someone else. I’ve heard people speaking in disbelieving tones about others speeding while exceeding the speed limit by 20 MPH themselves. I can’t be the only one who has observed this. Perhaps you have as well. One thing I worry about is that I could be doing the same thing without even realizing it.
Oftentimes we tend to zone out while we’re driving, so automatic a function it has become. We just about enter a fugue state; you leave the house, get in the car, and jump cut to arrival at your destination. What happens in between? Tailgating and speeding and complaining about others tailgating and speeding, presumably.
This is especially prone to happening when you’re traveling a route you’ve navigated many times. For this reason among others I seek out different ways to get places. The present-day ubiquity of GPS has made this easier, although I used to enjoy the challenge back in the day of plotting out a route on a paper map, and then following that route in the real world. I was always fascinated with maps as a kid… yeah, I was a geek, it’s OK to say it.
When I first moved to the area, when I was still working overnights and didn’t know my way around very well I used to go out for drives after work and deliberately try to get myself lost. Sometimes it worked too well. I turned down some winding hilly two-lane somewhere outside Martinsburg and wound up following it to a point where I didn’t see another human for 13 miles. I wondered if perhaps I had unwittingly entered another dimension or something. Where I grew up any road that long would have had an intersection every quarter mile.
I guess what I’m saying is simply this: when you drive, don’t just drive defensively, be present. See what’s around you. Take consideration for the other people on the road, even if they don’t. Road rage never leads to any positive result. Cheers.
