Woohoo! Friday!
Several years ago on my way to work I had a truly revealing commute experience that I've thought and talked about many times since. There is one of those terrible merge experiences northbound I-405 to eastbound SR-520. This is a daily mess as "the flock of nerds" converges on Redmond. It's been long enough that I don't remember where this starts other than to say it was around that merge. As I drove I noticed a small sporty car, I think it was a Honda, appearing quite large in my rear view mirror. So large in fact that it's front license plate was not visible.
I was in the right lane and as soon as there was a Honda's length + 1 inch free space on its left my new car pool buddy slammed into the open space, roared up a couple car lengths, rushed back into the right lane and then I lost sight of them. Shortly after traffic slowed due to merging up ahead and I changed into the left lane. I moved ahead approximately 20 car lengths and while doing so slowed slightly to create some following distance. Just as I got breathing room between me and the vehicle ahead of me, my car pool buddy decides that my front bumper might be a nice place to ride and does a NASCAR emergency pit maneuver in front of me.
Twice more this occurs on the freeway as the Honda moves back and forth between the lanes in a vain attempt to arrive at its destination 43 seconds faster than the rest of us. I watch in muted horror as lives and property are risked to advance the needs of this one driver over everyone else on the road. The Honda again disappears ahead of me and I go back to the audio book I was enjoying. Taking my exit I arrive on the surface street near my office. Approaching my last turn I look in my rear view mirror and I'm mortified to see the same Honda again perform the Turducken maneuver resuming its original position in my back seat.
I round the corner, Honda on my tail. I pull into the small street that encircles the office complex I work in, Honda right behind me. This goes on all the way into the garage I park in! The driver dives into a spot not far from me and jumps out. All this time I was so distracted by the sheer insanity of the event I didn't notice the driver. We'll call her "Janine". I'm sure that my face looked something like one of those wrinkly dogs and my lip was absently twitching as I walked up to her. I'd known this person to be the definition of sweet and polite. Having worked with her for a couple of years I never would have guessed that she secretly yearned to pilot low flying jets at mach 9 through rush hour traffic. I would have picked her for knitting rather than whizzing past traffic with her hair on fire.
She was completely oblivious when I asked why she tailgating me and kept cutting me off. I mean it; she had no recollection of her Mario Kart behavior at all! Since then every time I've had bad experiences in traffic my brain works its way back to Janine and I began to form a theory around the state of mind people enter in when they drive in traffic. To follow along with me I need to take you to a place that may be uncomfortable, at least I know it is for me. That place is a state when you are utterly alone, anyplace where you are completely sure that you can't be observed by another person in any way. Now consider how your behavior differs between that place and being in public. Do you bite your finger nails? How about unreservedly pass gas? Go mining in your nasal cavity? Add to your belly button lint collection? Ok, well, that last one may just be me.
My point here is that when a person is alone it doesn't occur to them to be polite. There's no one else there to offend, right? So, sitting back and attending purely to one's personal requirements seems only natural. For some it's a stress reliever to just sit back and "be yourself". This is what I think occurs for people like Janine. When they sit behind the wheel of their vehicle and enter into traffic the other cars on the road are just that, cars. I don't think it occurs to them that there are actually people sitting in those seats. Shortly after entering the flow they settle into that same state of mind they do when they manage to steal a few moments alone before the kids get home from school, or the spouse arrives, or the County Sheriff busts in. Zooming past traffic and cutting other cars off isn't a problem. Those other vehicles are simply objects on the road to be avoided.
So that's my theory. It probably needs a snazzy name, like The Solitary Motorist Theory, or The Traffic Singleton Hypothesis. I may just call it Rick. In any case, here's a way of fighting back against falling prey to this behavior. As you toodle down the road pretend you are on your way to a lovely dinner with a large group of friends. There's going to be laughter and lively conversation. It stands to be a momentous night. Stories will be told and retold for years about the event. Now pretend that all those cars around you on the freeway are being driven by the friends you are about to have dinner with.
I'll admit that some of these folks are the types who openly consider the world as something they have exclusive rights to and the rest of us are simply there to service their needs and provide distraction to stave off boredom. However, the optimistic side of me (it's a small side, I know, maybe only visible for a 10⁰ arc) wants to think that the raging selfishness that haunts us on the freeway isn't who we really are and if we can acknowledge it we can rise above it.
Don't drive angry! Drive weird!
No comments:
Post a Comment