Get Out of the Way
For real now. Get out of the way.
I’m talking to those drivers who think the whole damn road belongs to them. Whether you’re in a hurry or not, for those of us who can’t stand wasting our time on the road, such drivers are a pain in the…
You know them. They’ll drive at a very low speed on one lane (their favorite one is the left lane). When another driver comes from behind at a (much) higher speed, although there’s plenty of room on the road for them to switch lanes to make room, they just refuse to do it. If there’s so much room why doesn’t the speeder change lanes? Well we do it.
The problem comes when you have two, three of the named drivers driving one next to each other at almost the same (low) speed. The whole road is free in front of them, yet they refuse to regroup to make room for the faster traffic to pass them. And, laddies and gentlemen, we just got ourselves a little bit of traffic.
If this were the only outcome. Unfortunately, such drivers cause more than traffic. They are one of the cause of mad, stressed out drivers that might, somwhere down the road, cause an accident.
How is that? Simple. Besides those drivers who speed for no reason (simply because they like to drive fast and they get a bit of an adrenaline from speeding) most of us do so when we’re in a hurry. In most cases it means you’re late for something which, further on, means you’re already stressed out. When you see our “beloved” drivers who refuse to cooperate on the road (and in many cases they think they’re doing the society a service by assuming the role of police) you only get more stressed out. You just can’t understand why the damn guy or woman can’t get out of your way. You’re already picutring yourself late for work or for a meeting with a very important client or missing the plane or whatever.
All of us, when put in such a situation, we get even more impatient. There’s only a short distance from this moment to making a wrong decision that could cause an accident.
You keep trying to pass your “enemy”. Whenever you see a little bit of room you think you might fit in, you take advantage of it. This means that whatever that spot may be, there’s definitely not going to be enough room between you and the car you’ll have in front of you. And if, God forbid, the guy slams the breaks for some reason, you got yourself in a nice little accident.
This is how the main characters of this post are the direct cause of an accident. They can also be an indirect cause. Simply by driving the rest of nuts. By making us mad. We all know mad drivers are not good drivers. When mad you make wrong decisions. No wonder every single driving instructor and driving course emphasizes the importance of being and staying calm behind the wheel. But how can you when you see so much ignorance, selfishness and self-importance around you? I personally can’t.
And if my above reasoning didn’t manage to convince you that, for the safety and well being of all drivers on the road, you need to get out of the way of faster moving traffic, let me tell a short true story.
When I was getting my public chauffeur license, since I did not have a CDL, I had to take an 8 hours class of safe driving. There were a total of about 25 people in that class (all of them sent there by a judge for traffic violation tickets). One of the topics covered was what to do to not get other drivers mad. For the same reason I tried to explain above. If you do, you put yourself as well as other fellow occupants of the roads in danger.
One of the gentlemen that was taking the class decided to share how he got a real life lesson about this issue. He was driving on one of the highways in our area and saw a driver tailgating him. So he decided to teach the bastard a lesson. He just barely touched the breaks enough for his stop lights to light up and scare the guy behind. Little did he know what he was getting himslef into. To make the story short, the tailgater decided it was his turn to teach our gentleman a lesson and followed him with the clear intention of starting a fight. The only way our story teller got rid of this crazy guy was to stop in front of a fire station. Otherwise God knows how this pursuit would have ended.
For all of you out there who decide to teach other drivers a lesson, who just won’t cooperate with the rest of the traffic, who just plain don’t give a damn about other members of the traffic: stop with this attitude. You are getting yourselves as well as other drivers in danger.
So, just Get Out of the Way!
