Driving is Not a Sport

I know I was just bitching not too long ago about peoples' driving habits but I have to do it again. I am continually amazed by the amount of bad drivers I see on the road, every day. Lately, it seems that the news has been full of fatal traffic accidents and I can't help but wonder how many of them could have been avoided had someone just paid attention to what they were doing. Rarely is an accident ever just an "accident" - there is someone who is at fault, and there is someone who wasn't able to get out of the way in time.

Last night I was talking to Lance about what I am seeing on the roads these days and how it is just crazy. I remember driving the commute in Minneapolis from Uptown to Downtown (what, like maybe 8 miles?) but it was jam-packed with traffic and I never got in an accident and rarely did I see one. I also drove the freeways regularly to get around and used to really enjoy it. I actually thought it was fun to drive with heavy traffic and a lot of lanes. But these days, I find I am on edge and mostly scared to drive. Everywhere I look, people are driving like they are *trying* to kill someone.

I know part of it is that, right now, I am hyper-sensitive because I usually have my kids in the car and I'm always on alert and in momma-bear mode. And considering I was just T-boned not too long ago, I'm even more sensitive and aware of others' actions. Yesterday I was driving Hannah home from gymnastics and we're going down Grand, when I notice a Buick ahead of us in the other lane, going pretty slow. He wasn't doing anything wrong, other than going slower than the speed limit, so I kept my eye on him. As we got up to almost alongside him, on pops his blinker, and over he comes. I had to do a pretty severe swerve to get out of his way and Hannah says, "Mommy, you almost fell over!" I watch my language in the car now, so all I said was "yep, but we're cool now." I look over so I can give that driver the glare he deserves and see he is just staring straight ahead, hunched over the wheel like he is trying so very hard to see in front of him. Completely oblivious to what he'd just done.

Yesterday afternoon, I headed back out west for a little shopping and as I'm sitting in traffic on University Ave., I start looking at the other cars around me. The woman to the right was texting, wasn't even trying to hide it, had her phone right up on the steering wheel and was typing for all she was worth. As our lanes start moving forward, she moves too, but is able to somehow keep typing. Once I got on the interstate, there was this guy behind me who I could hear coming. He had one of those loud, vroom, vroom cars and he obviously was in a hurry to get somewhere fast - I watched him fly from the far right lane to the far left lane and then, like he was playing checkers or something, bounce from lane to lane, as he cut off car after car. I kept waiting for someone to not be paying close enough attention...

So, just because you put your blinker on, doesn't mean you can or even should, change lanes. STOP looking at your phone. Whatever it is, it can wait. If it absolutely cannot wait, then pull over and type. If you come upon a red light, do not run it. If you see the light ahead is yellow, chances are by the time you reach it, it will be red, so just slow down now. Leave your house 5 minutes earlier so you don't have to put others in danger with your daredevil traffic weaving.