I love giving rave reviews, but today I’m going to rant. I think it’s the first time I’ve openly ranted in my little forum of family happiness. Having said that, I’m almost reluctant to sully my blogosphere bliss. But here I go, anyway…
Bad drivers, selfish drivers, in particular really get me going. This morning it was the Mini Cooper driver who decided he couldn’t wait at the stop sign, with the rest of normal society taking their turn. With little regard for others he bolted out to the left from behind another car getting ready to make a left turn. The mini driver took “cuts,” so to speak, because he was, among other things, impatient, selfish and apparently unwilling to get behind the five or six cars other cars that were going to wind up in front of him, had he waited to safely enter the road when it was his turn. The mini driver also took great chances with his life, and the lives of all the drivers and passengers that might have smashed into the tiny box of metal…had they, too, been bad and selfish drivers.
A senseless choice like this nearly always makes me gasp, for two reasons: one, I’m clearly shocked that somebody would do something so STUPID; and two, I want my kids in the car to understand this driving behavior is bad in so many ways that I can’t list them all.
Who taught this generation of drivers how to drive defensively and share the road? The same people who taught them to think of others first…nobody.
Note: After struggling with double pronouns, I chose to make this driver male, because we know male teenage drivers can be careless. (Now, it would’ve been helpful had I seen the driver, to accurately identify gender — and not toy with my biased assumption…that the driver was probably a guy!) HOWEVER, I recognize there’s very little difference these days between testosterone-powered teenage drivers and high school girls all consumed with phone-chatting, texting their new bff or checking their make-up in the mirror.
