The Safe Driver

Are you one of them?

A recent study showed that we have more free time than we did more than 10 years ago. I personally find that tough to believe. Reading further into this study it showed that we use this free time to shop, run errands and take our kids places they need to go. Now I understand. The life my wife and I have with taking any of our four kids to their activities can be quite exhausting and time consuming. We often get pressed for time, but to help us, we leave with enough time for delays. This way, if a delay happens, we won’t feel pressured to try something risky. Do you know someone who takes risks? Are you one of those people?

While I was recently driving on the freeway, I came across stopped traffic. We were all stopped completely for quite a few minutes when I decided to turn to the local radio station to find out what the problem was. It turned out there was a major collision up the road and we were stuck there until the police could clear the way. This unfortunate incident got the better of some of the drivers around me. They began to drive onto the shoulder so they could reach another onramp, at which time they began backing down the onramp! Not only is this completely illegal, but extremely unsafe.

There were almost a dozen drivers that I witnessed to do this and for a couple of them there were drivers approaching them from behind who were trying to enter the freeway. This was an added problem for them. What were these people trying to save? Did they not realize the risk they were putting themselves and other drivers into? One of these drivers decided to reverse without looking behind them!

The interesting part here was that within 10 minutes or so, we started moving again and were able to get to where we wanted to go within a reasonable amount of time. Was the risk these other drivers did worth it? Would the ticket they get be worth the few minutes it saved them? Taking chances to save the odd minute doesn’t make a lot of sense.

One of the reasons so many people backed down the onramp was they saw others do it. It reminded me of something my parents would often tell me when I was a kid; “If everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you?” Good advice from my parents, but these other people felt that if someone did it first, it was okay. Wrong. Common sense and logic play a major role when making driver decisions. Risk takers often don’t use logic or common sense. Patience is also a big part of any successful driver. Which type of driver are you?