When most people get into their cars, whether for a short trip to the market, across town to work, or a drive across the state, they don’t really think about how dangerous it is. You have heard it a million times: “Drive safe!” And a million times you answered: “I always do.” But have you ever really consciously thought about driving safely? Do you think about it the whole time you’re driving?As soon as the words leave your lips, they are forgotten, and you drive as you normally do. The danger of the activity you are engaged in is ignored. You are wrapped up in your music. Or your mortgage payment. Or you’re playing with your phone, or putting on makeup, or eating a breakfast burrito. You’re thinking about everything except your driving. You are a distracted driver.
Everyday driving is filled with life-threatening situations. Yet most people fail to give driving its due respect. And it’s getting worse. More and more people are willfully ignoring the laws. Those laws are there for only one reason: to protect me from you. When you fail to follow those rules, whether willfully, or through ignorance or carelessness, you become an immediate threat to my very existence.
The vast majority of dangerous situations are created by the drivers themselves. You are the most dangerous thing on the road. Accidents are rare, while collisions are all too common. Collisions are not accidents. They are the result of driver error. Someone did something wrong, and a rule was not followed. Even ‘weather-related accidents’ are usually the result of driver error. The driver simply did not adjust his driving to account for the adverse conditions. Rain, snow, ice, fog and wind can all make controlling a vehicle more challenging. They cannot, however, cause a collision without your generous contribution.
Driving is a collection of simple moves, all carefully coordinated by the brain in response to sensory input from a myriad of quickly changing situations. Drivers around you will be speeding up, slowing down, stopping, turning…all in various complex combinations. Then, there are pedestrians. You never know what they will do. Animals, too. And just as soon as you relax, thinking it’s clear sailing, suddenly there’s a sofa in your lane. How you react could mean the difference between life and death.
Changing lanes is probably the easiest driving maneuver, aside from just going straight. It is also easily one of the most dangerous if done carelessly. All it takes is a slight turn of the steering wheel to move your 4,000-pound vehicle into the adjacent lane. But preparing for that move, and making it safely, is something some people never get the hang of. Even though it usually happens quickly, it nonetheless requires careful planning and execution. A proper turn signal should precede it every time. It should never be an impulsive move, even to avoid a sofa.
Here is an all-too-common highway horror story. It is not limited to highways—similar situations happen in town, too—and the story’s antagonist is another driver.
In this scenario, there are two lanes, and I am in the right hand lane, travelling at the speed limit. I am following at a safe distance from the car ahead of me. Behind me, in my own lane, there are no cars for a thousand miles. There are likewise no cars for a thousand miles ahead of the car I am following. We are two drivers, each traveling at a safe speed, and sharing the lane a safe distance apart. We are both displaying textbook awesomeness.
But all is not sunshine, lollipops and rainbows.
Approaching from behind, in the left lane, there is something sinister. It looks like any other car as I watch it in my rear-view mirror, but there is evil lurking there. Behind the wheel of that car there is a monster. You wouldn’t know it to look at him. He could have been the pleasant man you greeted in line at the supermarket, or the guy walking his dog in the park. But behind the wheel of his car, a transformation takes place. The steering wheel is his full moon, and he becomes a raging monster. And there are no silver bullets that will terminate this menace.I don’t know it yet, but that monster wants to get off the freeway at the next exit. How could I know? He is not in the proper lane to use the exit ramp, which is quickly coming up on the right. And his excessive speed suggests he is attempting to circumnavigate the globe by lunchtime.
He really should be in my lane to use the exit, and a careful driver would have already signaled and moved into my lane, right behind me, where there is plenty of room—a thousand miles—for him to change lanes. That would have been safe and easy.
Instead, this monster flies past me at over 100 miles per hour, and without any warning, slams on his brakes and moves into my lane, right between me and the car ahead of me. He keeps moving to the right, sliding onto the exit ramp, narrowly missing the exit sign itself. It was really more of a right turn than a lane change. A right turn, from the left lane, on the freeway! This snarling, slathering beast has thrown the lives of at least three people into peril with his malicious maneuver.
What did he gain from what was essentially an assault? At freeway speeds, less than one second. That is what my life is worth to him. That is what your life is worth to him. He would rather kill you and me than be late for work.
I honestly think I would be justified in shooting him in self defense. He threatened my life. He may not have consciously thought about killing me, but he knew he was doing something that was life-threatening. He is a vicious monster that should not be allowed to drive. He should not even be allowed around people.
Where he was going was obviously a lot more important than where I was going. Indeed, where he was going was more important than my life. His own selfish needs are all he cares about. If you’re late leaving for work, you’re going to be late getting to work. Deal with it. Apologize to your boss. Leave earlier tomorrow.
Only a monster would risk other peoples’ lives to shave a few seconds off his commute. There is no place on the road for monsters like that. There is no place in society for monsters like that. Fines and traffic school do not work. Rehabilitation does not work.
You’ve seen the movies. Monsters are not cured, they are destroyed. At the very least they are restrained by heavy chains.
When you have a sinus infection, do you try to rehabilitate the bacteria? No. You kill them!
Too harsh, you say? Maybe he just realized at the last minute that his exit was coming up? Either way, he made the conscious decision to put others at risk. He should have gone to the next exit. Your sympathy is misplaced. I almost died. Have sympathy for me. Are you a monster too?
Lane-changing situations similar to that one occur on city streets as well. There is a heavier concentration of would-be monsters, and constant vehicular interactions. The speeds are generally lower than on highways, but people still die at the hands of these pernicious miscreants.
You have all been in this car. You’re driving along when the driver ahead of you suddenly stops, and then signals for a lane change. The driver apparently needs to make a right turn, right now, but he failed to plan ahead to be in the proper lane. So you and fifty cars behind you now have to wait for the right lane to clear so this driver can make his turn. There were numerous signs leading up to the turn, informing drivers which lane to be in. Big signs. All were simply ignored by this stooge (my apologies to Larry, Moe and Curly).
Not just rude and selfish, it is terribly frustrating, and extremely dangerous. You missed your turn because you weren’t paying attention. Deal with it safely without inconveniencing everyone else. Lack of attention gets people killed. If you can’t stay alert, stay home. An inattentive driver can kill you just as quickly as a belligerent one.
Because you’re a forgiving person, you may again say, “Cut him some slack. Maybe he was from out-of-town and he just realized that was where he needed turn.” That’s why they put up big signs!
This next practice may not be one of the most dangerous lane-change abuses, but it is one of the most irritating: jockeying for position. This occurs at intersections when the light turns red. As the first few cars approach the light, they will spread into empty lanes to be the first ones in line in each lane. They don’t signal, they don’t even look. It is usually a last-minute impulse.
You would think a driver would want to be there, first in line, so he can get moving as soon as the light changes, and not have to wait for the idiot ahead of him to awaken from his red-light nap. You would also think he would be willing to pick up the pace a bit when the light turns green. You would be wrong on both counts.
The driver who changed lanes at the last second is frequently the last one out of the gate on a green light, and when he finally gets going, he is in no hurry to get up to the speed limit, if he gets there at all. There was absolutely no reason for him to change lanes. In fact, many times, as soon as all the cars pass him in the lane he had originally occupied, he changes back, because that was the lane he needed to be in anyway. And the poor guy behind him, who he cut off back at the intersection with his unnecessary lane change, is left scratching his head.
Here is another lane-related horror. There are two lanes. A sign appears warning that the right lane will soon end, so drivers are instructed to merge left. There is no requirement for the drivers already in the left lane to accommodate those from the right lane. Common courtesy aside, it is the sole responsibility of the drivers in the right lane to safely merge.
Drivers in that doomed lane should signal right away, and prepare to merge into the left lane when it is safe. In those situations, I always try to leave extra room in front of me to allow those drivers to change lanes. Consider it a gift. That keeps traffic moving smoothly for everyone.
Ignoring all the signs and arrows instructing them to merge left, those drivers continue until their lane does not exist, and then force their way into the left lane (which is now the only lane). No turn signal, in fact they don’t even look! They just assume every other driver will accommodate their aggressive stupidity. They don’t make eye contact, either. If they acknowledge you at all, it is to offer you obscene gestures, as if you were the one who screwed up. These too are monsters that should be exterminated.
Those same mutants drive that route daily. They know the lane ends. They are intentionally in the wrong lane, trying to get ahead of one or two more cars to feed their pathological narcissism.
A similar situation occurs on a freeway when there is road construction. There are numerous big signs warning that a lane is closed, and instructing you to merge to the right or left. There are flashing lights, and huge illuminated arrows. A good driver will heed those warnings. He will signal his intent, and change lanes as soon as it’s safe.
But we precariously coexist with monsters. They will stay in their lane for as long as they can, speeding up and passing as many cars as possible, only to squeeze into the other lane at the last second, forcing everyone in that lane to slam on their brakes, and creating a traffic jam. That is why traffic crawls to nearly a stand-still at construction zones. These fiends make everyone else slow down to let them in. They won’t wait for an invitation, they just force their way in. It is a lane invasion.
If not for monsters like this, a closed lane would be no problem. No one should even need to slow down, unless there’s a slower construction-zone speed.
Some of those drivers reach the end of the lane before they have merged. So there they wait, wheels already turned, and signaling impatiently.
When you get to the driver who is now trapped in the lane that has just ended, do not let him in. He had three miles to move over. You even provided space for him, but he flew by you. He flew right by every opportunity to change lanes. He should not be allowed to benefit from his aggression. He can sit there all night for all I care. You shouldn’t care either. He essentially walked right into a trap that was clearly labeled “TRAP.” He deserves much worse. Mousetraps are labeled “Mousetrap,” but they still catch mice. Why? Mice can’t read either.
I would like to share a true story that illustrates the horror of driving aggressively or carelessly. True stories like this, unfortunately, are told every day.
Recently, not too far from where I live, freeway construction forced the closure of the left lane. It is not usually a crowded stretch of road, and occasional lane closures have little impact. In fact, I had driven through that section earlier that day, and the cars were merging like a zipper.
But later that afternoon, a driver decided to wait until the last second to merge, and at great speed, changed lanes and plowed into the rear of a car driven by an elderly woman.
She was killed. At 90 miles per hour, that driver tried to squeeze between two cars that were only doing 45. He swerved at the last second to avoid hitting the little orange cones that blocked his lane. Rather than flatten a couple five-dollar plastic cones, he chose to kill. He was not charged with any offense. According to the investigators, it was just an ‘unfortunate accident.’ He miserably failed the ultimate driving test and killed another human being. Yet he is still allowed to drive.
The monster kills, and lives to kill again. The officials who made the decision to let him go are monsters too. There is simply not enough accountability for the monsters in our society. As we have seen, a slap on the wrist will not deter a monster. And this one did not even get that!
These are just a few lane-change horrors. There are many more. And there are millions more stories involving other driving atrocities. Simply following the rules would eliminate most of those. But you have to know the rules. Learning, understanding, and following the rules is apparently the hardest part of driving.
Most people graduate high school with only a minimal understanding of what they should have learned very well over the previous 13 years of school. Within a couple years after graduation, much of the knowledge they did take with them has also been forgotten, or is ignored.
I don’t care. You’re ignorant—your choice. The fact that you say “I” when it should be “me” probably won’t kill me. It was pounded into your skull every day for 13 years and you still don’t get it.
By contrast, you spent only 15 minutes reading the driver’s manual. How much of that did you absorb? And that manual is a only brief summary of the voluminous driving laws’ highlights. It’s like comparing your address book to the entire phone book. Have you ever gone back and read that driver manual again, just to refresh your knowledge? I would be willing to bet that, as soon as you passed the test, you threw out that manual and never looked back.
Laws change, and new ones are added. Have you ever checked to see what might be different?
When you learn to drive, and you learn the rules of the road, those are life-and-death rules. Remember those rules. Follow those rules. Sure, you got a license saying you passed a stupid little test. But you also made a promise to follow the rules, and to drive safely. When you don’t, there can be very real and immediate life-or-death consequences. Once again, those laws are there for only one reason: to protect me from you.
Obviously, it’s too easy to get a driver’s license. And too easy to keep it. This is proven every day on our streets and highways.
I refuse to die because of your actions, whether they result from your stupidity, aggressiveness, negligence, ignorance or carelessness. I am keeping my eye on you. If your actions threaten my life, or the lives of my family, I would probably be justified in shooting you. That is not road rage. That is self defense.
Follow the rules and be constantly vigilant. You are the only driver whose actions you can control. Everyone else is an imminent threat. Everyone else is potentially a monster.
Do not be another driver’s monster.
Scott Wright © 2017