Monday, March 30, 2015

Me First! Me First!

It’s the self-centered cry of little children thinking only of themselves in the moment. They are small kids so it’s okay and sometimes even cute. It’s not quite as adorable when it’s a grown or almost grown person acting that way, especially driving their car. You may not have thought of it this way but this attitude is a major cause of automobile accidents. You have all seen it (and probably have done it) like pulling out onto a street in front of an oncoming car because you didn’t want to wait or wanted to be in front of the line….ME FIRST! These are the dangerous driving situations that all stem from the ME FIRST! Me First! attitude.


Pulling out onto a road with oncoming traffic:  When you pull out onto the road and the cars are too close to you, they have to hit their brakes, slow down, and sometimes swerve just so you can say ME FIRST! What is it that makes people pull out right in front of a car when there is a huge space and no cars at all behind them. You could easily wait literally TWO SECONDS and then pull out behind them with no rush or problem but you want to be first. For some reason you want to be in front of the line even though you are all going the same way at the same pace. There is no prize for getting there two seconds before the rest of the traffic but there is a prize for not getting in a car accident.


Merging: Whenever two lanes are merging into one lane, somethin’s gotta give, or should I say someone. How many times have you had to hit your brakes and or swerve because the car behind you is flooring it and exceeding the speed limit trying to beat you and merge in front of you. They want to end up in front of you even though they were way behind you? You were driving the speed limit and minding your own business in the straight lane but some (is TOOL too strong a name) had to be in front of you for no apparent reason. There wasn’t a checkered flag or a Gold cup ahead. It was just ME FIRST! Can you tell I’m getting a little steamed and road raging as I type in my office.


T-Bone: T-boning is slang for what happens when you turn left at an intersection in front of oncoming traffic going straight. By the way, you don’t have the right of way when you turn left. The major cause of injury and death on a motorcycle is T-boning. A car turns left in front of a motorcycle going straight through the intersection and the motorcycle hits the car in the side. A terribly tragic accident occurs just so the car can go first as in you guessed it……. ME FIRST!


There are many more examples of Me First driving but I think you get the picture. We forget that we are sharing the road with others. I think instead of sending these people to traffic school, I would make them re-watch the Barney episode on sharing they saw when they were three years old!


 



Me First! Me First!

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