Long ago, my high-school friend was engaged in one of “those” conversations with his mother. He was behind the wheel as they drove down “The Pike”, that highway between our towns. In response to her question – something like ‘whaddaya want to do with your life’ – he started “I want to help make the world a better place…” She cut him off - “then start by letting into your lane that guy whose had his blinker on for the past quarter mile!” We still laugh about this today, 50 years later. [Please click on the header above to continue reading]
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I’m reminded of this story nearly every day as I watch 12-15 cars stacking up behind a car trying to make a left-hand turn across the lane I’m in. Far too many drivers ahead of me continue on their way seemingly oblivious to this traffic situation. I slow down, signal for them to turn and wait until they do. Some waive gratefully, some not; I always want to believe that the drivers stacked up behind them appreciate it and are relieved to be able to move on. I know I am when the situation is reversed. I just don’t understand how this behavior can be excused with a simple “Oh, I just didn’t see that…”. What, then, are you seeing as you stare out your windshield? This random act of kindness or courtesy costs nothing, solves a traffic problem and may just prevent an accident. It usually takes me less than 20 seconds to catch the car that was ahead of me, so nothing lost. My conclusion after 50 some years behind the wheel is that driving reveals our personalities; in other words, you are as you drive. I smiled to myself recently when I read that in early driver studies, psychologists observed and developed a mantra – “a man drives as he lives”. Driving is a living laboratory of human interaction. The problem isn’t that people can’t or won’t be courteous. Researchers have determined that most drivers are just inattentive and nonobservant. The term they use for it is “inattentive blindness”. And, it’s getting worse with all the digital distractions now available in our automobile cockpits. When I encounter the situation noted above, I’ve seen that some drivers don’t even immediately recognize that I’ve stopped to let them turn in front of me, so buried are they in their personal entertainment devices called phones, having predetermined human behavior and settled in prepared for a long wait. It’s sad that they’ve been so conditioned that “catching a break” is so rare as to be unexpected. They’re no more observant than the drivers in the parade of cars headed the other way! 3The driver psychology studies also demonstrated that there is an anonymity in driving – we likely don’t know the drivers in those other cars and won’t meet again, so this affects our attitudes towards them. Making it worse is the loss of that most powerful of human dynamics – eye contact. It alienates us and makes the brief interaction less personal, less human. The focus is more on the inanimate car and far less on the fact that these cars have human drivers. Behind this veil of anonymity, the normal constraints of life are often ignored as we are freed of our identity and fail to recognize the humanness in others and to then extend them common courtesies. But, I think, none of this should be acceptable as an excuse. We are all travelers on this same road of life. Whatever the cause – inattentiveness, anonymity or just not caring – I find it a disturbing trend and, humans being what we are, I don’t have any real expectation that it will miraculously change. I only hope that those who program all the algorithms for the driverless cars we’ve all been promised were taught to drive by an observant and courteous mother like my high-school friend, and that they remember well their early driving lessons. |