Is it a journey or a race?
I know that we’ve been told many times that life is a journey; but is driving also a journey or is it a race? I witness many drivers who seem to be in a race. They weave in and out of traffic as if they are a current driver in the NASCAR series. What do they have to gain with this type of behaviour, besides an adrenalin rush?
I end up driving in a wide variety of traffic all across our country. I was recently on the east coast when I noticed some strange driving behaviour. I can’t believe how many people who were blocking the intersections when they couldn’t exit it. They were in so much of a hurry that they didn’t care about holding up other drivers by blocking their path. The general rule and law is to enter intersections only if there’s room to exit. Considering that the traffic isn’t moving, why try to get through? It only stops the cross traffic to be stopped by you. This gridlock should never happen.
I was recently driven around a city by a local reporter. They were trying to get to certain destination quickly and ended up stopping for a red light. They said they would have normally have gone through the red light so they could get where they were going sooner. I pointed out to them that the traffic that ahead of us was stopped at the next red light. Why speed up and cause a traffic infraction to save literally no time whatsoever? I pointed this out to the driver and they agreed with me. Why speed up so you can stop? It doesn’t make sense.
We constantly see advertisements in newspapers, magazines and television of new vehicles and how quickly they can accelerate and how fast they can go. Everyone likes a new car, but since our roads are already over populated, we can only go as fast as the drivers in front of us. Having a vehicle that can go faster doesn’t allow us to reach our destination sooner or safer.
I know someone who has a beautiful sports car. It goes very fast and they drive it that way. We ended up going to the same places a few times and no matter how fast he drove, we ended up getting there at the same time. He was weaving in and out of traffic, trying to get to the front of the pack, but we still ended up getting there at the same time. What did this type of behavior save? Besides the risk associated to weaving throughout the traffic, no time was saved. Was this a race, or a journey? Since life is a journey, take the time to smell the roses and enjoy the drive, before this race comes to an end.